


Lizbob Supernatural Watching Notes (Season 15)

by lizbobjones



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Meta Essay, Non Fiction, watching notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 108,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22400713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizbobjones/pseuds/lizbobjones
Comments: 56
Kudos: 94





	1. 15x01

15x01 watching notes

I should say that the less than ideal conditions for catching up continue but I did finish doing Important Work which just made me feel guilty to ever enjoy free time when I wasn't doing it so I'm giving this a go. For the record it's exactly 18:00 on 21st Jan 2020 which I am saying for the inevitable comparison when I post this. 

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I'm going into this totally cold from watching since months ago with a bit of a migraine and the recap is genuinely a recap for me, so it was super rude to be reminded that Dean nearly killed Jack earlier and then they do the last road so far with Baby underneath it to show she's been driving them along the road the whole time. Which has always been implicit but I suppose that's a nice statement about the implicit becoming explicit.

Which, being season 15, means that the pay off is all now in the deck of cards Dabb is shuffling and we just have to see what goes down on the table and what is left back and unsaid at the end.

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Michael!Dean was last season. Wow.

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"I am a Winchester!!"

huge statement for the season: not just for Jack, who was born to it all and became one like a fish in water, but for the fish out of water Cas who has never been comfortable to truly call himself a Winchester. I have the advantage of being in January 2020 so I've seen the latest Star Wars film (and Jack would love I'm using a Star Wars analogy and also fuck this he won't get to watch the movie for a while) and I hope this is enough rambling to mean you skip this if spoilers...

https://twitter.com/waltdwilliams/status/1219673725488041984

So the Winchester name is used in the same legacy way that JJ Abrams went with for "Skywalker" in the sense that it's an adoptable title, that one can take on to best describe their life philosophy and what they stand for in the universe. It's a big nostalgia pull in Star Wars to use it in that way, and of course super debatable if it was the right choice or just fan pleasing stuff for the sort of broad base emotional not rational pull. I will say that rationally I kinda don't like the new star wars film but emotionally I wept through the entire freaking thing and bawled at the ending on both viewings even though one was weeks later and I'd read tons of critical reviews and explanations of what exactly felt iffy about the whole dealio and why.

Using that as a compass reading, this one in SPN is in a different direction because the show has always leaned heavily on found family, and the concept of "Winchester" as a title has been embedded in the show from the start, largely based on the fact Sam and Dean were already coming into John's legacy and taking on the family business title. Whereas in SW of course the "Skywalker" name was not even associated with Vader's legacy in a galaxy-wide way where people would know the name. Luke was a fuck ass nobody, Anakin was dead and buried in people's memory and Leia was running around raised as an Organa... I mean people joke about it right but clearly there was low danger of Luke being discovered because someone's like "wtf you're a SKYWALKER?" when he's off buying power converters in Toche Station weeks before the movies start because it doesn't ping anyone as a thing. It's only in the new movies where he is a hero in his own right remembered as doing what he did that the name has started to mean anything to the wider galaxy, so even though Anakin's family legacy and failings to correct goes right through the story to the end, the Skywalker name genuinely has fuck all to do with it, and Kylo being obsessed with the Vader side of things is literally a reminder that the dark father figure of the story wasn't even using the same name as the hero.

SPN of course is way more personal, and the name has serious brand power from the start. Sam and Dean are quick to live up to it and expand its power. And also expand the family within it. Being an honorary winchester or an imposter winchester like poor Adam means something serious in the story. The legacy is dark and of course being a Winchester can be a tarnished thing - the bros are convinced their family is cursed and blood relatives are always dying on them. And because of that, their found family circle is hugely important to them as their support network, and earning your place in it is crucial (if also sometimes fatal...). 

Anyway it's obvious Cas has a place at the table (on... the table? with the carvings on it? I am pretty sure I saw Mary added hers so it makes it even more obvious that JW and CW need to be added by the end if it's now basically the qeuivalent of writing your names in an olde timey family bible which will be the record of the family as an heirloom and monument) but he's avoided being a Winchester forever, either someone calling him it and inducting him, or him choosing to really just say "hi I am Castiel Winchester" to whatever demon he needs to terrify that week. 

I feel like having Jack show up in the opening of the final season to shout out his place in the family - which was gratefully accepted and they adore their boy by now so it's not weird at all - just lampshades even harder that they are taking on new recruits and Jack fully fell into place as son and grandson last season with his emotional connection to even Dean who had been so wary of him to start with now just being uncomplicated in the sense of identifying it as a father-son bond whatever else is there in it. We just get many variations of that bond with all the many many characters adopting our proto-baby Yoda.

(I feel like I had more to say on how this is obviously making it super important to get Cas in here saying the thing or having it said to him but I've been heavily distracted and forgot it :P)

-

I hope it's in the last episode as he signs his wedding documents with Dean

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Oh and then we get a bunch of John stuff once more about the boy's achievements and legacy because this has to be how we go into the last season, and having this final appearance basically was a way of tying a bow around it all and giving us John's blessing in a way. See above: narratives powered by a father's messed up legacy that the son(s) still follow in the path of but try and do right this time.

The show is obviously wildly aware that this is the final season and has to give us this in a meta way with the pre-season clip show as in-show they might have a pretty good idea this is it given the stakes they're up against and it's very meta that they're gonna have to finish Chuck and his story one way or the other. But obviously they can't know the final step of the real world we live in and that we know in advance this is the 15th and final season.

Hence: giving us a recap of how Season Daddy Issues But Now We Are The Dads set this all up for us to go into Season Daddy Issues But Now It's The All-Father Kinda Dealio.

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"Story's over"

I mean I know this is episode one of season 15 so obviously it isn't but also IN world it can't be because Chuck's presumably still fucking with them. So that line thrown in comes as a warning that there is still something to tell. Just that, of course this show being this show it went meta way too early, in the sense that they couldn't have known there'd be 15 seasons building on this all and there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle. In their case, as meta as they went before it was 4x18 which really uncorked the genie, and this season is in a way the set up as far as I can see to try and cork the genie, neutralising Chuck and the bleeding meta wound in the story which is that it has been acknowledged as a divinely written story for 11 seasons at this point, and all "why" worldbuilding questions go back to Chuck, and so so so much that has happened to them has him to blame, from Leviathans to Amara to whatever emotional damage Lucifer was dealing with that week... Not to mention their character arcs as main characters. And even Jack showing up late to the story seems to be fated to be a true rival to Chuck, freaking him out to the point that he organised a story to have Jack killed, which he got so personally invested in he overplayed his hand and finally revealed to Sam that he'd been playing them so hard for so long. Which takes us back to 4x18 and his own jokes about being a cruel capricious god. Which you could dismiss when he was "just" a prophet, but after 5x22 or 10x05, wherever you fell on that one (11x20 if you really wanted to cling to disbelief :P), it was a very horrible point to come back to, that God truly was hanging out messing with them. 

At which point, you have to accept that maybe there is no true peace or end of story in the show until the issue of Chuck has been addressed. And was 11x23 enough to actually say that he felt less weird and this was an order people could accept? When left with crumbling heaven and events rube goldberg machine-ying into Jack being born and the utter chaos that wrought (in some cases a self-made prophecy that a nephilim will bring chaos) it's now feeling like Dabb was making it clear that this was not a good way for things to end and that there was an inevitable way that something huge would eventually fall apart, whether it was Heaven running out of power or Lucifer unmaking things with Jack or what eventually happened which was Jack becoming a cosmic disturbance all in his own right. 

So. This is all really unsustainable. Like, current CO2 emissions level of unsustainable. (A metaphor or example they've used a couple of times - the ice caps melting has been referenced at least twice and many more times metaphorically to make it clear they're exploring humanity's real world issues of the same nature) Bringing God back into the story and challenging and exploring what he means and what his writing of this world has meant and what can be done with it when it's not just Metatron messing around in season 9 but the real deal... His control of the narrative is the real impediment to free will and people getting to make the world they desire, just as there's 0.000001%ers ruining our planet but so far beyond our reach no matter how much we recycle as individuals. And free will is the other title for our main characters. 

Guessing then this is the other main theme of the season summarised then - wresting control from God for everyone's sake like Prometheus stealing fire. 

Probably worth rewatching that episode (Loflin, so, close to Dabb's writing world even if it was when they were split up as writers). 

The ultimate victory for Team Free Will is genuinely getting to choose to do nothing, and there being no malign force out there thinking it would be more interesting if they did something.

AKA no more eyes of viewers falling on the boys expecting them to have adventures just as much as we joke about the cruelty of the writers for dragging the characters through yet another season.

-

Oh no my baby Jack is still dead. Lovely start to the season, right in his eye. :( 

-

Meanwhile: zombies

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I know shit all about music if I don't know the song well, to the point of not being able to hear lyrics that should be clear as day to anyone else, so I'll leave that analysis to someone else.

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The kills of the zombies return them to dust and spirit form and they zap straight up. This is different, and different is worrying.

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Noooooooooooooooooo Cas is the one who grabs Jack and throws him over his shoulder like a dead sack of potatoes.

They're gonna run but they can't leave the boy!!

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I saw Misha had a hip surgery recently so I hope this wasn't him doing all the running with another whole human being over his shoulder

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More specifically if it was, I hope Alex is not the reason he had to :'D

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I do like how they're like "wait. zombies slow. let's just... go. fuck this."

I hope that's an omen of things to come.

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Ahahaa Cas has to keep a hand on Jack's butt as they run

filed under: how did they even film this and not ruin every take

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if this escape works that is

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Hooray a crypt! Aka this escape is maybe not going to be as easy as just legging it to the car and running over a bunch of zombos on the way out.

-

Oh nice title card. Burny Empty goo? I'd guess not leviathans but lol I make a petition every year for those fuckers to return as side villains. They're not title card worthy though. This has to be about the end game struggle and like... Burning away all these horrible gooey strands of toxicity. In the case of it being the Empty, that's oblivion, defeat, entropy, idk, all the bleak nihilistic kinda stuff. 

I'm so psyched for the Jack and Billie team up.

-

But emotionally bereft that they're in this crypt and while Sam and Dean wordlessly bar the doors and prepare for the fight, Cas moves further into the crypt and gently lays Jack's body down... They're not going to get a chance to lay him to rest but here they are in a tomb and the best he can do with Jack's body is to be gentle with it and put it slightly out of the way of where there's about to be a fight. Continuing from his dad-ing from last season he's still the one being shown most emotionally affected by this and connected to Jack in the immediate moment... Maybe just because Sam and Dean have powered through so much grief by now but Cas is being put in the focus as being the one who put the most on the line for Jack once again and conducted his own Jack-related secret subplot last season, and this season he's still the one obviously grieving the death of his son.

Also of course from Dean's POV he is holding some blame still at Cas for the secrecy and not letting them know Jack likely had no soul for much longer than they did, so you could read it as guilt from Cas if he is taking Dean's words to heart but honestly I remember him being way more unrepentant and bitchy than guilty in the blur of last season that time has made. Maybe because we're in the party!Cas era and party!Cas doesn't rely on Dean's interpretation of him so much any more and stands up for himself, and also because he's much more emotionally balanced overall. Especially when it comes to knowing how he feels about Jack and where he stands with Jack. That certainty has reflected outwards in a maturity arc for Cas, who after all did a whole baby to adolescent arc from his introduction until like... the day before he met Jack or whatever. Now he is dad Cas and dad Cas has better lines. 

Which now Dean is struggling with.

I mean all of them got the dad arc dropped on them at once even though of course Dean's experimented with fatherhood right back since meeting Ben in 3x02 and wondering what the heck that made him to the Braedans. Dad arc development is also why Dean is so mad at Cas because he too had that bond with Jack that got so twisted up that last season almost ended with him Abrahaming him until God slipped up and revealed he was back to his old testament games. 

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I have not, unfortunately, become an old testament scholar in the time I've spent absent from fandom.

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Dean and Sam move down into the crypt - Dean still not looking at Jack, looking around at the new place they're in and possible escape/weak defence points. Sam gets to the lower portion of the room and sees Jack and takes a very, very heartbreaking moment to look at his dead son and joins the grieving making this the same order TFW warmed up to having Jack among them in the first place, and this is carefully crafted to repeat it, with obvious telling statements about their priorities and when they can allow themselves to let their guards down to feel feelings.

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Cas is still just standing there staring at Jack through the whole moment, which sucks.

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I genuinely do not understand why a table at the back of the room is set up exactly like how you'd find it if you wandered in in a Skyrim game but there it is with like, candlesticks and probably coin pouches and a weirdly preserved and ready to eat tuskarr steak

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In this little grief ballet, once Dean has inspected the whole room (which Sam has joined in with after his moment), he allows himself to move to the centre of the room and look down at Jack, and we get this great little moment of him and Cas standing in the light together looking down at Jack with Sam a step back in the shadows, giving us a Dean n Cas reaction moment specifically about them before this dance carries on

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"He didn't deserve this" Oh Dean. 

Sam, ever the pragmatist, looking for solutions - "Cas, can you - you "

Cas, always being asked to do impossible things for the Winchesters, has to swallow grimly and deliver the news that he can't because this also would benefit him if he could and therefore the universe dictates that unless he's on a wild power trip he just can't bring back everyone they loved for the hell of it

That's when Sam starts to have to take huge breaths to not sob everywhere.

-

Oh dear, Dean and Cas are mad at each other still for sure. Dean starts demanding answers from Cas, pulling him from his grief, and Cas immediately snaps back in a way he did not when Sam was asking the impossible from him. 

He's clear about his limitations and I guess also that he's not willing to be torn to shreds to save the Winchesters at his own expense which is a huge character development from where he used to be, but does make him as useless and grumpy as the rest of them, which Dean hates. Equal footing with Cas is excellent long term and I remember one of the old meta conversations for them was that Dean needed to get Cas down off the pedestal in his mind - he's done it a lot in the past so it's not so much a thing in the last few years but there's still very much a good point to make that this is about showing they truly are as useless and helpless as each other in this moment. It's, er, not going over so well now. They'll be thankful for it eventually.

Cas snarks back at Dean that he will not starve here, but it's bitchy, not actually declaring intent to commit to grimly waiting this out while Sam and Dean starve in front of him. Cas pointing out there are still SOME differences between them, things which set him apart from Dean in that obviously unbridgeable void of his experience as an angel versus Dean's experience as a man. Aka, more shit to overcome before the actual end.

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"Son of a bitch," Dean says, while in the background Sam has his own little moment of "I am not going to be stuck down here with these fucks having this argument for the rest of my life." 

I assume sheer spite from Sam will get us through the next part as Dean n Cas are too up their own asses about each other to help. Sammy suddenly started walking around with a purpose.

Dean has started monologuing. 

This is where we're at as a family right now I guess.

-

Hilarious anti-Chuck monologue. It's funny how he's like "beard and the robe" because that's exactly how one would stereotypically describe God but he's definitely not referring to the cartoon depiction. 

Something there which I left for like 5+ hours since writing that but I meant like, Dean makes a comment which in context might be one thing but it's for the viewer to remember in canon that Chuck literally just stole Dean's bathrobe and wandered around looking like a scruffy nightmare in his underwear while he was trolling them through the Amara sitch.

Which of course in hindsight is going to need some serious peering at because now we know Dabb was setting up to have Chuck be his endgame as soon as he took over the show, if you go with the assumption Carver had peaced out by 11x14, which is exactly when hands of god get introduced and we start steering towards pulling Chuck back into the narrative.

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Sam has found probable running water behind a wall while Cas was sulking and Dean was blaspheming.

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Love Cas in the background allowing them to do this with crowbars

*insert gif of him rolling his eyes and lifting the anvil in 8x08*

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Brick wall behind it... Cas gonna blow it open? This takes us back to the ole grenade launcher metaphor but in this case there's also like, fate putting wall after wall between them and escape, which is a demonstration of Chuck's intent to frustrate them at every term when he's the one moving the chessboard around.

Dean finally asks Cas for help (angrily, like Cas has been doing something wrong), but instead of Cas moving in or even getting to answer, NOW the wall breaks open and another zombie pours out of it, showing that this request is just met with more violence and awfulness. Probably because Dean was mean when he was asking. If he asked nice maybe this would have worked.

Maybe what Sam heard was just a zombie squirming around down there??? Cas finally moves to BADASS SMASH, killing the manifestation of nastiness that Dean summoned. If the wall is the communication barrier between them, things aren't going well.

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OH NO now what is happening with Jack??? He's super dead in the Empty so 

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"It's not Jack" 

he did the cute wave thing, are you sure?

"It's a demon"

Oh he was just mocking the very concept of Jack when saying hi.

-

I suppose this is how they get Alex into the next few episodes while Jack is off having his Empty and Billie adventure. I mean if this rando demon hopped in because there was a useful body around to borrow then he is also keeping Jack's body around for fixin up and putting our boy back in there in the long term??

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Maybe they can just shove him back in the mal'ak box while they wait for the plot to restore Jack to them.

I am living in 100% faith they'll have their son back by the end because fuck everything if not.

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OH so that is why I saw Jack wandering around with sunglasses and hoped it had been a beach episode and everything was fine again by like episode 2 or whatever it was I saw set photos from while scrolling my dash with poor filtering.

I am very sad there is no beach episode.

-

I guess the homeless person who had been living in the crypt and conveniently left sunglasses, which this demon has a radar for, was the one who set up the weird Skyrim table.

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Cas reacts furiously when Belfagor(?) tries to introduce himself like "first day of school" because of course while Jack was never going to go to a normal school, he's still loosely following an emotional growth arc - like I said how Cas had grown up from infanthood to grumpy dad during the course of the show - he is still at a toddler-ish stage, had some adolescent tropes but still in some ways stayed as innocent as a two year old... The concept of him moving on to his early school days is still a vague age-related and innocence-related concept that Jack has been robbed of, even if in a way he was never going to have it. 

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Oh, Belfagor just called Cas's coat an abomination. Come on, this is the nicest coat he's had in years, buddy. 

Getting some real queer eye vibes from his comment :P Oh god they can not be like, what is the worst thing to temporarily replace Jack with - oh, a sassy gay demon. 

-

But yeah, Cas is furious because it's an affront to his child. Whether because Dean is pissed with Cas or just able to keep it together to deal with the situation - taking the longest time to deal with anything else as he scoped out the room earlier as the obvious example from a minute ago in show time - he decides to hear Belf out and stay Cas's hand for a minute. 

Also it would kind of suck if after getting smited once, they also have to stab Jack's poor body. 

Dean n Cas getting into a heated argument and oh boy is this season 15 answering that long long time when Dean n Cas were kept a little away from each other because kicking down all the walls (and letting all the zombies spill out) would advance things along too fast and get them to say things to each other about belonging and feelings and shit that has been unsaid on the table forever with the whole Sheherazade thing that Mittens metas the most on. Obviously with a season left to handle it we have to actually make them a plot point if we're ever going to deal with it. 

So them yelling at each other about who's defiling whose corpse is actually great (ow re: my Jack feels though) because it's building on that argument from last season and giving us first episode of new and final season tension that they're going to have to eventually resolve, hopefully to endgame niceness. 

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Sam is used as a final vote in this, but just a quiet "cas, dean's right" rather than him having a heated opinion on it. He hates it because it's Jack and all, but they've all made this bad choice one time or another when needed and if Belf says he can help then they can't just kill him and go back to standing around yelling at each other. 

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Well, Dean n Cas yelling, Sam standing there having a crisis.

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Wait didn't he get shot last season.

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Okay Belfagor just assumes the Winchesters opened a hellmouth and that's another thursday for them, because, when isn't it, really. Reasonable assumption. Love that he lumps Cas in with the Winchesters. 

Also interesting that although Chuck set the whole thing going, I guess he just pulled some cosmic lever to flush a bunch of spirits out of hell and let them find their own way to become zombies or zombie-ish demon babies... 

omg Jack was so obsessed with all his cases being zombies while hunting. Ow.

anyway Belf has no clue who caused it so this isn't something where all the supernatural critters come pouring out like "Omg the cage is shaking in Hell and we all know about the Darkness now" or whatever. 

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Okay I resent Belf for wandering around as Jack, but he's weirdly representing the natural order and I don't know, kinda respect a demon who doesn't want to bother anyone but just wants to put things back to how they should be. Obviously in a moment where the natural order is not only fucked but deeply in question to the very core, he shows up with a simplistic grey morality for the characters to bounce off, to question what THEIR opinion is on putting everything back to how it was once upon a time and letting demons carry on doing their thing in the new world order, if only they were all as "harmless" as Belf. 

I mean. He would say that when in front of the three Winchesters. 

But let's take him at his word for a moment just to entertain the concepts he brings up. Since he does seem to have been flushed out at Chuck's whim, and there ARE no big baddies any more on either side of Heaven or Hell - it's just the big cosmic fuckers left now. Billie, the Empty, and Chuck as the players on the chessboard who matter when it comes to big moves. Which means Heaven and Hell have an opportunity to maybe be set back to just being part of the machinery of the world's cosmology and the role they play in all this is not to bring out yet more huge personalities, but people like Anael who is blatantly a counterpart from Heaven to this, and Belf, will set how this really ends up? Since we're playing for endgame, a demon popping up in episode one telling us about the natural order is definitely a card slid onto the table, along with Anael's proposed reforms from last season. 

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I don't like Alex's Belf voice because it's not cute and gentle or earnest or whatever. Jack was such a puppy it's so uncomfortable hearing his voice actually match his age :P 

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Cas trusts Belf with some of his blood to do a spell, and I think that's interesting just like, the concept of it being graveyard dirt and angel blood, the dirt in Jack's dead hand, and the blood coming from Cas's. Instead of someone formed from nice earth Jack is a being of graveyard dirt right now if you're like, biblically into the concept of people being formed from clay first. And Jack as Cas's son, not literal blood but the connection is metaphorically represented there... 

But yeah it's a weird little spell, for the symbolism there of Cas giving his trust to this horrible little thing. Let's hope Belf isn't lying. 

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Belf recoils from a Cas glare with the physical "YIKES" that honestly everyone should do when Cas glares at them. At least he knows his place! Grrr! *hisses pathetically at him for defiling my baby*

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I'm trying not to like him, shush.

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He sighs to himself and follows after them, nothing too sinister. Of course wearing the fucking sunglasses he can't have too much nuanced emotion, so a cartoony snark demon is a good choice.

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Was this a super-powered version of Ruby's demon killing spell? That DOESN'T kill him to do, obviously. I mean were they even demons in the bodies or just angry ghosts finding zombie shells on whatever impulse Chuck inspired in them???

Bit unclear on what exactly was unleashed tbh.

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*pauses in case Chuck wrote any rude secret messages in the dead bodies*

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"You have solved my zombie puzzle! Ehehehehee!"

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Ethical question of the highest order: when a demon possesses the burned out corpse of your nephilim son, do you leave him hanging for a high five? 

(Dean does, and dammit, even though everything sucks, that still makes me uncomfortable)

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"We'll just take those ghosts and... put them somewhere else"

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oh dear.

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High definition bloody mary attack D: 

(Bloody Mary originally was all about keeping secrets and telling lies - I guess the reminder at the very least poking the concept of honesty back into the foreground)

These girls joking about how divorce is awesome maybe are being set up to be murderered by a ghost for being heartless... pfft. No time for dark secrets, just have them be abjectly awful for a second :P 

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At first Bloody Mary attacked in the exact same way as season 1 but then she popped out of the mirror to attack the next girl, and we didn't get a hint they were hiding very much.

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Cas's SCOWL at Belfagor. Careful you don't accidentally smite him just from sheer hate.

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Sam googling... oh dear, sweet Sammy who will google shit with what might be his dying breath, is checking breaking news to make sure there was no global zombie apocalypse while they were underground. He breathes a huge sigh of relief, but the fact is a whole ton of ghosts just got punted into the ether and they have a lot to be concerned about even beyond Chuck.

(Dean is trying to get belated credit for having never trusted him but I'm not sure even he and all his furious anti-God moments would have really expected Chuck to flip on them like this)

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Oh, so all of Hell is currently emptying out? ALL of it? Demons and spirits alike? Belf is giving them the numbers of 2-3 billion sinners collected over human history and even with all the demons the Winchesters have stabbed that's still a lot :P 

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I'm getting deeply suspicious of how Belf has all the right spells for things. Is he Chuck, still fucking with them, and possessing Jack's body like he is a random demon? 

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I mean obviously Chuck is still fucking with them but is he fucking with them or fucking with them fucking with them?

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oh dear, a car with a blood splash on the windscreen... A phantom hitch hiker situation?

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I don't think the show is going to have Sarah Shahi back for a random ghost encounter :P 

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Sam and Dean, however, don't know that I know she's super awesome these days after her early career playing random ghosts for one episode. They're speculating out loud with unnerving precision that they recognise the tropes and not just go to woman in white but start to ask if they sent her to hell then can she have got back out and is back to her old ways.

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Just to make it personal, there's a ton of horrible clown noises in the next random attack. 

God is pissed that Sam shot him.

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Loving this effect of him freezing up the car windows as he goes past. They're really showing off how different the show is now. This is almost... slick :P 

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Oh of course Sam goes to talk to local law enforcement leaving THESE ASSHOLES alone in the car together with "Crowley jr" to argue.

I like that insult because it's sort of keeping the memory of Crowley around at least, maybe just in the sense that season 6 Dean would have thrown it out but whatever. It's moving the feeling of how babby Jack, who ended up being Cas jr, now that the same cute shell is occupied by a demon it still has to be SOMEONE'S child. The instinct to still see it as an offspring of SOMETHING that can baby it is just too overwhelming, so Dean processes this by picking their long-time demon adversary and imagining a world where he (demon!Dean?) ended up co-parenting a Jack-alike with Crowley. Instead of Cas. Aw. 

Also a funny little way to get the ole Cas vs Crowley rivalry stoked just to further add to Cas's already enormous pile of "fuck you" he has going right now. 

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Because of course Dean immediately makes a suggestion that leaves Cas alone with Belf and therefore babysitting something Awful. And he is like FUCK YOU NO 

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Cas begs out on account of not being able to look at him. This would be the point he gets out the car to throw up if he was human. 

He just rocks up to join Sam and his day to day comfort loungewear is enough to pass for FBI on casual glance so he just joins in with the conversation and successfully has removed himself from the scene with Dean and therefore arguments and babysitting duty.

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Oh no, Belphegor (Mittens has corrected me on the name by now) is kinda making me like him, talking about worshipping a rock shaped like a penis and how everyone back in his day just had a lot of humps. Like, a lot.

He's kinda fun, I hate to say. 

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Wait no he's hitting on Dean, abort abort abort 

-

Thanks, Dabb, you found a way to make this even MORE horrifying to watch. 

-

Immediately makes Dean demand to know when Belph is going to abandon Jack and fuck off and stop using Dean's own kid to tell him he's gorgeous.

-

Since Jack is dead, does Belph have any way of knowing via memory and shit that he's possessing Dean's kid? I would assume not. 

-

Probably wouldn't STOP your average demon but then Belph seems to be trying to make friends a bit. He has definitely got the vibe of having been cooped up waaaaaaaaay too long.

-

Side note: after this I went to bed but before that Mittens sent me Belph's wikipedia page and I will only be addressing him as Your Ambassadorship from now on. 

-

Hell's former Ambassador to France continues to complain about how he couldn't have got a better meatsuit because everyone else at the cemetary was way too wormy, and at least with Jack he could just grab some glasses and pretend to have major smoky eye makeup going on behind there.

Side note: is it too soon to make a smoky eye makeup joke for Jack when I am months behind fandom but this is still too real for me and I am cry-laughing this point?

-

"Who was.. he... anyway"

*gruff pause* "He was our kid" 

My HEART

-

Ambelfador is like "oh sorry" in that borderline insincere way which comes across like, I didn't know, mostly just feel weird about hitting on you a second ago rather than genuinely feeling the loss.

-

Oh of course the spell requires a human heart. We're back to that imagery because of course hearts have been metaphorically torn out of bodies already with the emotional state TFW is in

-

Cas vs doors count: ripped the lock off but didn't explode the entire thing so hooray

-

Uhoh one of the pictures in these houses Sam n Cas are investigating is someone walking on a beach, I think about to go surfing. It's one person all on their own though - we want the beach rom com ending where they're all chilling on the beach as a family and Dean n Cas kiss with the sunset behind them lol

-

Did Cas just psychically intuit the Bloody Mary killing?

I know they don't let him go on hunts much because he has some unfair advantages in general but adding THAT as a new power is just making him totally OP

like they complain he's too OP but they don't always have to add NEW shit to make him even more unfair on a hunt :P 

-

Bloody Mary takes an interest in Cas - someone who Dean is shunning right now because he didn't tell him in time about Jack. Is there more that Cas hasn't told them? I feel like there was so much chaos towards the end of the season I can hardly tell what nonsense he is and isn't responsible for but I do remember the show was very heavily telling us Cas was not in the wrong and Dean was being a drama queen about it.

-

I mean OF COURSE they'd send Sam into the house the clown had been in which means that Cas may have just incidentally gone to the Bloody Mary house as the leftover choice but I like to think there's some meaning to interpret from everything.

-

Sam being sweet with a smol child tally goes up. Ow. 

-

"Everything's going to be fine" *clown materialises behind Sam, we all remember that Dabb co-wrote 7x15, and in that moment of realisation of the True Horror that Sam is marked by, John Wayne Gacy gets in a good shot on Sam while he's frozen in the cruelty of the showrunner/God's choices for him*

Okay, like, Chuck is the evil whims of the showrunners and writers and their worst instincts. Dabb has different, better voices in the story who talk for him, and Billie has been the best one with her lines about how the universe is poetic etc, which best explain Dabb's writing style and GOOD philosophy.

The cruelty and ability to maul your characters with their worst fears and catch them out on their bullshit, however, is also necessary to some degree, and so this nasty choice of a murderclown for Sam to face is also a mirror to the nastiness that may be inflicted on them in the plot by the writers. 

Sam of course having all these huge openings to get to him that you can stop him in the tracks with his trauma when it comes to huge plot stuff, so the fact he has an uncontrollable fear of clowns which ALWAYS triggers him is important, just as his trauma hits him.

-

The clown is singing happy birthday at Sam. Is it his birthday? I am utterly disconnected from when canon is set any more, and too out of the loop to know if fandom was bitterly celebrating another shitty Sammy bday because the end of the season often lines up with his birthday, allowing the show to move the date back or forth just enough to do things like kill Dean on his birthday or whatever. 

Awesome if they killed Jack on it too, huh?

-

YEAH CAS.

-

Angel with a shotgun etc 

-

... wait I don't think I have ever listened to that song. why am I even allowed in this fandom.

-

Aww Rowena on the other end of the phone making Dean call her ass exquisite before she'll do anything.

-

You can't just HAND A DEMON A BAG OF SALT oh my god. 

-

Oh, good, Ambassador Belph doesn't just think Dean is gorgeous, he's literally starstruck about Dean from when he was down in the pits himself under Alastair. Wonderful little callback, huh, Dabb? Remind us of Dean back in season 4 when he was dealing with that. Great. Wonderful! I haven't had to think about Dean carrying around that trauma for almost a whole season or so depending on when it was last mentioned :))) 

I mean they've kinda laid off the torture since he finally got rid of the Mark of Cain and he's been so much more chill for a while that it's finally stopped being an open wound and allowed to heal a little but here's the ambassador to france just scratching it open a liiiittle bit more.

Again, first episode of final season stuff: if they're bringing this up now, will it lead to some finalised character stuff for Dean as the season goes on, to give him some peace over this?

-

I'm legit uncomfortable about Alex going from Adorable Nougat Son to a completely plausible Random Demon No.3 of an episode with all the same vibes as well as the dialogue. There was an actual moment where with the sunglasses and all obscuring his face I almost sort of stopped seeing Jack at all and just saw Some Demon Being A Douche. 

-

No, I don't think Dean knows what it looks like when you set an anthill on fire, you monster.

-

............ Every door including the cage

Dabb really is cleaning up. 

-

I mean 10x05 did remind us exactly how awful the concept is that the other, original Michael is down there and Adam along with him. And the cognitive dissonance Sam and Dean must need to put aside that they have another brother and he's stuck in the cage. 

Giving Adam some peace might be a thing to do. 

Again, a Dabb creation, and another source that in some ways Jack was scraped from, especially with how Sam got really big brotherly immediately and then also fatherly to Jack - something about them setting off his protective instincts and sympathy for their situations while Dean was vehemently against them. 

Jack is like a culmination of over a dozen characters through canon though so it's just a side note because yikes he's a frankenstein's character. And Dabb is the mad scientist cackling over him. 

-

Hilarious to pull in ANOTHER season with Michael as a threatened villain - but in the end AUMichael, sexy badass that he was, ends up being just the warm up act to bringing OG Michael back into the story and wrapping up his story, with Dean primed to have fresh angst about the whole thing... Even if OG Michael is a very different presence from the AU one, there's still just a current reason for Dean to feel weird about meeting him again, because now he has experienced at least some watered down version of the worst results of what he stopped Michael doing the first time. 

-

"He wouldn't hold a grudge, right?" Ambelfador slaps Dean's arm, not his shoulder. Fortunately even with the implication he has quite a crush on Dean, not making it weird and a shoulder touch thing I'd have to write tons about, because Dean is completely unable to reciprocate sexual tension due to meatsuit. Which gives us an interesting dynamic for the endless prodding at Dean in this regard just of the fact he's drawn male attention once again and the ways in which Belf fanboys over Dean who responds as a complete brick wall to it give us a non-threatening to Dean's romantic prospects example of just constantly showing a dude-looking thing fawning over him just as a reminder that something about Dean draws this kind of attraction... Just like you might have a buff male hero constantly having female characters fawning over them that they pay no heed to because the trope of passively showing your sexuality by who you attract is a thing, just largely done as far as I can tell with exaggerated sexy ladies fawning over dudes kinda shit. 

(It's late, i hope this thought makes any sense... I just... They didn't HAVE to have Belf show up and immediately start crushing on Dean with stars in his - where his eyes would be. Like, how does this keep happening that it's always Dean who ends up the object of male affection, even in examples where for obvious plot and character reasons he's repulsed by it for non-sexuality based reasons. In fact the way that the block is so obvious and huge that Dean's spelt out that Belfpphagor is possessing his kid and then the "joke"? continuing beyond that point, that he's still just starstruck in Dean's presence, moves this on from what could have been a one moment joke that you could laugh at for Belf's misplaced attraction and forget it, to giving us actual time spent developing Belf's character in this way, yes to get to Dean's hell trauma thing, but then Belf could have had any number of lines to get there without reminding us that he seemed to have this crush and making it ongoing super weird yet... Here I am still typing about it.)

-

And very amused at Dean's hugely unimpressed and grumpy face about all this. 

-

Cas healed Sam's FBI jacket too.

Oh Lord Heal This Jacket.

-

Oh shit is Cas going to get season 5'd back to human again because Chuck's done with the lot of them? Getting some real season 5 vibes anyways so that would be hilarious.

-

OKAY CAS LEAVE THAT BULLET WOUND ALONE, I DID NOT LIEK THAT.

That was Gandalf trying to pick up the ring in the start of LotR bad. 

-

What did Chuck say that gun did? just reflected back whatever you did with it? Are they currently connected via a shoulder wound? 

-

Has Chuck's not healed either? That would be awesome.

-

Anyway pls explain why demon!Sammy vision.

-

I think it was demon!Sammy hurting Dean?

This is not a why. This is just terrible.

-

Maybe if we're going LotR, it's like Pippin touching the Palantir instead of Gandalf picking up the ring? He gets a glimpse of some awful shit Chuck is thinking about doing to them? 

Chuck is Sauron either way. 

-

Ironically Sam would not be Samwise which honestly just makes my head hurt.

-

Cas felt a weird energy in the wound and may or may not be stressing out that Sam has some latent demon energy resisting being healed by an angel

He's got that same sort of look he gives Sam whenever Sam does something spooky and awful that Cas doesn't like. 

-

Aw that old clocktower has popped back up for a last guest appearance in the show.

Featured prominently for Sam in 2x06 since it was in his vision of Andy's twin with the weird name doing his psychic kid murders. 

-

I do love when they get empty towns to play with. 

-

I fuckin KNEW Ambelfador would say "cool!" when he saw the dead sheriff. I'm not sure I like that I already have his character pegged but he did do that sturgeon face smile that the rest of the fam have done so many millions of times and I'm not sure we ever got Jack doing it because it's such a sarcastic look, so in the gif compliations, this will have to do. 

...

Has Cas ever done it?

-

I love that there's a prominently placed U turn, dead end, whatever sign that Cas and Sam and their escort quest NPCs are walking by. Taking them out of a cul-de-sac or whatever those roads are called wherever you are. The dead end road obviously being a very symbolic thing, and they're facing past ghosts, their own history - walking with their backs to it and attempting to go into a new future where there ISN'T a dead end... 

-

I'm glad Belph didn't say "He wasn't using it any more!" about the heart. 

Saying, "Got a heart!" like that was bad though, especially in the sense of that meaning something else entirely, aka Belph is metaphorically heartless as a demon, possessing Jack, who was an adorable babby with a huge heart. 

-

"I remember you. You took me home." Oh man, she's confronting Dean because episode 1 feels smashing him around the face is... something. She was their first woman in white but she represented all the others - Mary for Dean and Jess pre-emptively for Sam. Of course Dean is once again freshly orphaned, and wow do you have to work hard to be orphaned twice in a life. So here she comes as the wronged woman who can't go home because of the damage she has done to her children in her misplaced rage... Mary now someone who died because of misplaced rage from Dean's kid wow I am annoyed at this sentence. 

Anyway. Oof. She did seem more connected to Sam in 1x01 through interactions and symbolism but since she's here interacting with Dean this is what comes through.

-

"It's just one ghost" Cas says to Sam. Reassuring him about his most deadly fear. Together they run back into the dead end in pursuit of it.

But appearing as Big Damn Heroes to the woman and daughter they've saved, I guess.

...

".. just three" Cas has to revise his assurances in the face of facts. He's immediately pushed back at by the narrative, which is a fancy way of saying "Chuck's bullshit" for all cases of this sort of thing, ongoing right now. Cas can't be allowed to have a hero moment or to reassure Sam - something has to happen to make sure their footing isn't solid, that they're still not quite able to give the full support needed between each other. 

-

"You shot me" Ahahahaaaaa

He looks so fed up because now he needs to get a new white shirt or waste time healing the current one (oh lord heal this shirt) and Sam is distracted by this snark to miss the approach of the ghosts. He is NOT invulnerable and able to ignore the same threats as Cas.

-

Meanwhile the former ambassador to france tries to sell out Dean to Constance by saying he barely knows him and is now saying "Bad ghost" to her while backing away, so I can see how he got the position. 

-

While Sam is being whaled on by his worst fear - a giggling clown, ghost part not necessary to cause fear - Cas has to pick saving the innocent civilians over taking a clean shot at the clown, hopefully not symbolic of him fucking Sam over later for some hero moment. 

Though I do approve in the short run of Cas stretching all these hunter muscles some more. It's very satisfying to see him on the job. 

-

WHY DID DEAN THROW ASIDE THE IRON BAR HE FOUND AFTER KNOCKING CONSTANCE AWAY?

-

I guess he assumes they're running back to the car where weapons live but honestly.

-

Why is Bloody Mary picking on the little girl?? Has she killed before?????

(I know I know it's just all out ghost murder time)

-

Belpf is in NO rush to say this spell. Stupid lazy demon! This better work!

... Okay that was a cool spell effect with the beating heart sound and all

-

WHY ARE THE GHOSTS RUNNING TOO?

-

This is silly

-

Oh good the spell works at least. Now we have a ghost quarantine.

-

How do we keep people out of it

also: this spell has been used before, I'm sure. I bet all the weird scary ghost towns like the one in 2x21 have something like it keeping all the ghosts in. 

-

Sam gets to tell a howling clown ghost to shut up with the safety of the barrier between them, confronting fears etc. 7x14 expertly put the clowns as a Hallucifer metaphor and I think for Sam living in a post-Lucifer world (we can only hope) he has the chance to seal that trauma away a bit and at least know he can tell it to "shut up" without getting an "aw he told me to shut up" in reply.

-

AWWW SAMMY GOT A CUTE LITTLE "THANK YOU" FROM THE TINY WEENY GIRL I AM SO HAPPY FOR HIM 

it's be nice to Sam season

I hope

-

who am I kidding this is supernatural

-

OooooOoooOh sam walked off to deal with the admin part of this, is Cas standing out of the car just because he can't stand to be around his ambassadorship and will Dean talk to him?

Please talk, i'm dying over here

-

Wait Belph is gone too. 

So much for keeping an eye on him :P 

-

"You okay?"

Me: "now kiss"

-

Oh, OOF. Dean checks Cas is okay, says "good" and walks off, like, Cas being not dying for once is about the bare minimum Dean requires right now, and he can't handle a moment more of Cas, so he just turns his freaking back. Ugh. Cas was probably going to go right into Sam's weird demon!Sammy vision shoulder hole. You know like, yes I am fine but your brother isn't, but Dean is still being an ass about last season to Cas, so. 

...

I wanted them to manufacture some tension and yet here I am and I can't handle it :P

-

Especially not if Sam actually suffers in the stray fire of this sulk more than just the awkwardness of being in the same room as them. 

-

Emotional maturity for Dean 2020

-

Oh, THERE's Belf, doing literally what I am doing to Dean n Cas, watching their moments and then huffing and saying, "Wow, AWKWARD" because he can read a room.

Dean told them that Jack was their kid, Belf knows Sam n Dean are brothers just from Hell Gossip Papers - I think he now knows the rest of the dynamic involved with Cas and all :P 

It's nice of him to offer Cas a shoulder to cry on about his relationship with Dean, sarcastically offered or not. 

-

Dean at least wants to check in with Sam's shoulder even if he probably can't see demons in it

-

I WANT TO KNOW WHAT DEAN'S KNOCK KNOCK JOKE WAS

DON'T TALK PLOT, TELL THE REST OF THE JOKE

-

Oh no, now Dean's reflecting on how they were rats in a maze even when he thought they had free will.

I mean.

Years ago I was writing about how 4x18 was a test and exploring wtf was up with Chuck writing the end of 5x22 in his book before it happened in the "off book" way. If he was narrating the importance of the car before Dean ever even demanded to know where the final showdown was, he knew all along Dean would be driving his car into it, you know? There are a MULTITUDE of things which have bothered me about it and this idea that they didn't actually have free will is something I've seen debated/maybe got into myself/maybe argued with myself over that if this was even a good interpretation when the "point" of the story for us the viewer was the free will, almost that Chuck writing the free will ending of 5x22 ahead of time was almost a plot hole or.... narrative framing. every time the word narrative comes up with Chuck I just think of him saying he killed Jess for narrative symmetry when they first meet him. 

Because the thing is that while he was Just Chuck it was fine in a way, it was a joke about his lack of control of the narrative being fed to him by higher powers.

Now he is the higher power, #confirmed, then he really did joke to Sam's face about killing Jess, then later hit him in the face with a plunger just because he could.

He is the clown Sam has to deal with next after Lucifer, ya know?

Because the thing is: Dean stood for Free Will all along and so this comes as a bigger existential blow to him and his philosophy and everything that he fought for. All the arguments with Sam going right back to day one about their will have been fighting against destiny and higher powers, and even in 2x13 when Chuck (#confirmed, again...) gave him a little jolt of confused acknowledgement that fate can be spooky, he's basically stood strong on refusing to let things Just Happen To Them because some asshole said they should. And he thought he had, overall, been winning.

Sam on the other hand. Has been hit with that damn plunger every day of his life since he was six months old, and Chuck owns it and Sam was put as the narrative pawn to be dumped on through so so so much of their shit. It's not philsophical. He tried to have faith and trust in SOMETHING overall for so long, and instead it ends up that even now he's the one who shot Chuck and got shot right back in return, when that's the first hard move he's ever made against Chuck, unlike Dean who's been cussing God out from the first mentions in the show. 

-

But then with the next lines, of course, while Dean is in full existential crisis mode, Sam has been preparing for this conversation his whole life: the real free will was the friends we made along the way sort of shit. That for him as a person these bonds he's made and the story they wove has deep personal meaning for him. 

Dean wants a higher philosophical freedom and ability to rest at night knowing they're not going to be fucked around, while Sam has grown so used to living in the maze he's happy - 

woaha aha ahaa. 2x13 also had Sam accusing Dean of being the rat that just presses the pleasure button instead of the food button until it dies. 

Great to get the same metaphor in both episodes, huh? 

Especially with the consideration that Dean wants to escape the maze now, while Sam is the one trying to make peace with living in the maze and at least there's others in there with him and they are provided for??

-

I just remembered with Dean's comment about chugging popcorn that Chuck really was sitting back eating popcorn in 11x21. When Dean got the firewall between light and dark conversation. At the time I remember being suspicious that Chuck was enjoying it all a bit too much but I was kinda hoping it was just bad people skills and him being a usually absent father hanging out rooting for his peeps and weaving his way around the issues of being all powerful but wanting them to solve it in a hands off parenting way, while also throwing in the Amara issues he had that he genuinely didn't want to confront her (see also: 11x22) 

Of course now he comes off as voyeuristic and mocking. 

-

Sam just assumes the "the end" comment was Chuck deciding to fuck off like all the other AUs like the apocalypse one etc and that Sam is facing a godless universe, and this mess is just the conditions he left to spite Sam and Dean.

Like, is Sam assuming that Chuck is gone and they're now masters of this universe, to do with it what they will? That would be AN endgame scenario, but with the current mess, not a good one. A neutral one. Work to do and shit is everywhere, but if they can conquer it with all the resources they've got and things they've learned, then maybe they can make it their own good place. 

... I doubt before I hit play that Dean's going to agree, and will still be on team "Chuck's sitting on a cloud watching and laughing" with me.

-

I do like Sam's optimism about the "Just us" scenario. Because, see above: happy to live in the maze, he trusts their abilities and assumes they can handle this. And if there's no god above testing them, then is their time dealing with apocalypses all the time actually over? Will no more huge chess pieces get moved, leaving them to clean up this last huge mess in their own leisure?

-

"It's just us" could also be a motto for Dean's philosophy of "this is the team of us two assholes, some angel I can't look at, and the Demonic Ambassador To France Whose Wikipedia Entry Is A Picture Of Him Pooping, currently possessing our dead son. What are our chances of taking out God?"

-

What's one more apocalypse right, Sam laughs. 

It's so funny that they teased us with Ghostaggedon with heaven ghosts raining down on them, but after literally like 5 or 6 years anticipation since the angel fall and Kevin informing us how bad it was in the veil, and a year or so since Naomi re-warned Cas about Heaven's batteries... it was Hell being cracked with a season 2 finale but worse hell door situation that came swinging out of left field. 

Funny as in "ha ha fuck you Chuck"

-

But yeah, Sam laying down those stakes that if he can believe God's gone then they get to keep the world after this apocalypse. 

-

Dean looks the least convinced by Sam's philosophy of being truly free than I've ever seen him.

I would like to think escaping the maze is an endgame scenario for the show but obviously Chuck IS still around fucking with them for the rest of the season and they actually have to beat him, he's not just fucking off early or there's no tension and finale badassery.

Now I think about it, the CW telling them not to kill God was followed by establishing AUs and then establishing there's still one God for all of them, and he just fucks off and abandons them, so if Dabb always wanted to get rid of God and let Sam and Dean have a godless world to run, then the dominoes to get there were popping up only a few major plot twists down the line from the network giving them a wristslap for being too blasphemous. 

-

Dean says "you and me" but leaves out Cas and Belph (despite His Ambassadorship really being a very valuable addition to the team.. hahaha) 

-

But yeah he's doing a bibro thing of only having faith in him and Sam. Teamwork, Dean! TEAMWORK.

-

Also maybe smooch Cas.

Apologise first then smooch.

-

LOL they didn't HAVE to do the 1x01 "we have work to do" clip CIA subliminal messaging flash in at the end there but I guess this is final season Dabb era no fucks left storytelling. 

... 

I saw a gif of Dean tap dancing and I have to admit that while I started this watch mostly because I wanted to catch up for fandom and friends and being there for the end of the show and all, I am now actually 100% motivated just to find out what the fuck that was. 


	2. 15x02

15x02 watching notes

Taking a pause from hunting for a shiny wooloo for this so be grateful for my time.

-

This woman sneaking back in to the dead end with just a scarf to protect against a "gas leak"? Seriously, you would have died either way but I'm guessing you're our cold open death just as someone who should not have gone over the salt line but did anyway.

... er... spelling bee ghost? 

I forgot to check if Buckleming wrote 2 or 3... I'm out of the loop on their seniority right now. I would fully accept it's one of their episodes just based off that opening though since it left me blinking and going "huh?"

-

Emily Swallow! Wow!!

Maybe not surprising in reflection but I was sort of expecting not to see the big players again immediately but then I remembered, oh right it's probably a Buckleming episode, they love to throw the whole kitchen and sink in at once and that means they'll unsubtly leap right to the biggest stuff because they don't know how to be chill and let the plot creep up on people even remotely subtly. So if Amara is going to be popping up again then she may as well show up now! :)))

I hope she's got like, ultra chill while she's been gone, wears fuzzy sweaters, and has started to collect actual cats.

-

I know there's a lot going on with this specific place but there's also a zillion demons everywhere, but Sam and Cas are still here holding down the one high school... And seem to have called in other hunters to help them as well? 

I just saw DHJ's name go by on the screen so I am guessing yes this is a Buckleming episode for sure, because this is a very complicated cast list already. 

-

I think it's interesting to have the concept that in the past, especially season 5, they've had a few times when supernatural drama created dramatic town-wide scenarios where they ended up in charge of the remaining townsfolk or at least bunkered down with them dealing with it... but this time almost everyone but a few households were lucky enough to escape, and they've got a modern disaster sort of feel to it - in this awful day and age we're extremely used to news footage of survivors of a natural disaster crammed together into a school, and having a ghostpocalypse result in a school of supernatural disaster refugees is a concept I haven't really come across ever, where although the townsfolk are being lied to about what happened and it's more of an accident than a natural disaster as far as they know, the end result is the same of mass displacement and people ending up in a makeshift shelter. I don't think it's too wild to assume the revisiting of something so huge it's causing enormous chaos and displacing whole towns is written to be relevant to the climate change era and it's less about the kind of war mentality of season 5.

(This thought goes on the assumption that since dabb started this last episode this isn't some concept Buckleming have thrown together by themselves, or i'd be less doubtful it's that deep >.>) (And yes you do not need to be deep to be scared of climate change but sometimes I wonder if Buckleming would even think to write about it in that way...)

Anyway, it's a thing to think about for a final season where this is like humanity's last great challenge and Sam and Dean are basically talking about earning the planet's freedom for all of us by overcoming this thing, and so of course the way it has harmed this community is immediately framed in the way we'd be familiar with from climate displacement stories. In the same, obvious way that we have to deserve and fight for our planet to earn ourselves a future.

-

I mean for 2019 it's probably too subtle nonetheless :P 

-

Is Sam wearing a chain around his neck? What is this. 

-

He's also still terrible at public speaking... Oh god, am I going to be repelled out of the episode with second hand embarassment?

He looks way too scared to be doing this, and also: wearing an FBI jacket surely can't erase the anti-authority vibe of flannel shirt and jeans, and that mop of floppy hair. I mean. Come on. No one thinks that an FBI agent looks like this.

-

Wait. In the SPN world it's practically expected that there's a zillion more animal attacks and so many get written up as regular attacks when they're actually vampires, that it's been implied before, I'm sure I remember this, that morticians genuinely think vampire bites are animal attacks because of how many come through the system... 

... Have so many people seen this tall plaid wearing man with the flowing hair lolloping around their neighbourhoods playing FBI that the cultural perception of the FBI at a ground level is skewed slightly?

Is there a TV show with another implausible shaggy FBI agent lead that's been influenced by Sam's visibility as the feds 

-

Aw, Dean's got an iron chain too. Good, I'm assuming they're actually in the exclusion zone, or at least patrolling the edges to make sure no ghosts got out.

He seems to have adopted Belph, which is hilarious when he was the least enthusiastic about Jack. Maybe we'll work in reverse order and Sam will come around to His Ambassadorship next, then finally Cas. 

... probably not Cas. 

-

It's also possible that Belph is still just crushing on Dean so hard he volunteered himself to follow him on patrol. Though I think they'd want to keep him away from the townsfolk on account of being a stray demon wandering around and not just that but with burned out eyes that are going to be extremely hard to explain once someone notices them from behind the sunglasses.

Which, of course, he's wearing at night.

-

Apparently he can just see fine so I am.. guessing demons have enough extra sensory nonsense going on they don't need functioning eyeballs per se. In 4x01 I remember Sam getting attacked by the demon at the diner but she did seem to be a little bit flaily in her attacks. I suppose Belph might just be really good at this shit. 

-

Dean grumbles about hanging out with a demon again, and Belf says he could say the same, which makes me wonder if he means historically he has hung out with hunters as a direct flip of Dean's comment or if he just means surface level, yeah and I'm hanging out with you too. Because Dean is grumbling about ALL the times they've ended up with demons as their BFFs but of course Crowley most notably in Dean's history.

"Think I'd know better by now" "Could say the same" Just - he may be replying to Dean's previous comment but by the t ime Belf replies, Dean's already muttered that line so his answer is to this comment not the one before, in 

-

Aw jeeeze it's not just Buckleming, it's directed by Bob Singer. 

-

Belf is now being parallelled to Dean very directly - it was there last episode with the torturer thing, though of course Belf is super chill like just oh no it's my day job and I'm good at it and I'm just a soldier of hell who wants everything to be cool and normal again. 

Also ghosts are legit scared of him because he was the one torturing them, so cool. Cool cool cool. He's sauntering around with the Winchesters but is that terrifying of a being

(whose wikipedia article, of course, we can't forget is a woodcut of the demon on the loo)

... in Jack's body the effect is somewhat ruined when it comes to being intimidating. Alex might look like a totally different being entirely from Jack but he's in the same context as being Jack, wearing Jack's clothes, and so he still can't help exuding the sense of being really cute and tiny.

And then the barrier gets hit with something and his chill "I'm a good soldier" is with Buckleming subtlety demonstrated by him snapping to calling the attack on the barrier with military attitude and terminology, even though I kinda doubt given the history Dabb established for him and what we know of how Hell does its demon training he'd really have that sort of thing ingrained in him. The seeming American military metaphor is just there to compare him to Dean who was at least raised by a Marine as a hunter so has similar military quirks in stressful situations. Actual demon soldiers historically on the show really seem to have more of just being really super mean and toady-ish ingrained in their being :P 

-

He compliments Dean's shot and I suppose that's about trying to give the impression he is trying to... pull rank on Dean? Be a father figure to him like hey cool I'm like chill Alastair with sunglasses at night... I didn't have shit to do with you in Hell except from a distance admiring you so we don't have any pre-existing baggage, we can just address all your trauma with me as a safe proxy!

(+ innuendo Belph would want me to make on his behalf but I refuse to hit on Dean for him like I would for many other characters because ew) 

-

Oh, yeah, shut up Belph, being on knowing-name terms with Jack the Ripper. Big whoop you got to meet him in hell, that's cheating. 

... Detective series where they just summon demons trying to figure out who historical mysterious serial killers were who died without being identified.

-

Oh my god are the ghosts seriously having a meeting like with the curtain twitching they're basically neighbourhood watch levels... 

The only canon this makes sense with is the season 7 episode Buckleming also wrote with all the ghosts in the house and that episode just had really wacky ghost canon bending when it came to their interactions and personalities as well. 

Maybe just because it stopped being all about them being spooky and started to convey anything at all about them having structure and heirarchy and wants and needs in the after life instead of just drifting around as echoes of their former selves bent to a single twisted purpose. 

The concept that they are kinda chill when just hanging out with each other is a kind of supernatural thing that this show WOULD do and we've had other stuff like Kevin trying to send messages through the ether when he was stuck in the veil in season 9, which indicates ghosts chat to each other still... But yeah, it's probably just because Buckleming handle it and the idea that the ghosts are now hanging out like this really behaving in this contrived way just seems a step too far for me to not comment on. 

Like, give us the scenes where they group together and work through their issues to agree they have to deal with their situation and it requires ghost cooperation. They can be paralleled to the team of dumb humans who are going to go break into the anti-ghost bubble because they don't trust the feds and think there's something weird about the whole gas leak story. 

(fair)

Those townsfolk are also missing initial characterisation that might make us care for them more too - they're presented as almost antagonists because we get a snapshot of what this looks like from the non-hunter side through them, but it's so aggressive and untrusting that even though we also know that Sam and Cas aren't really FBI and they are lying to the town, for good reason, it's so one dimensional that there isn't even discussion of the FBI in the sense that regular people might have opinions on their presence and if they trust them and the government in general or whatever. Just, bam, our heroes are trying to keep everyone out for their own safety, these idiots won't trust them and are pointlessly going to sneak in and cause problems... Written like there's not even a thought that it's a nuanced position and that if you take just a moment to write any lines whatsoever that convey more than Townsfolk no.1 personality you might find an interesting discourse on life in America in politically weird times and what the writers think someone might feel to have their town suddenly and suspiciously closed off by the FBI. 

And then the ghosts also already have agreed to meet like this, are acting alive enough to do things like suspiciously check out of the window for anyone passing by, and are all loitering in the hallway letting Jack the Ripper open the meeting with ridiculous pomp and circumstance. I mean if any combination of personalities would be hard to gather in a room with shared purpose, agree a leader and start plotting together, it would be the assembled ghosts trapped in this bubble, and how this comes to be would be an amazing thing to tell if we're going to do this.

But Buckleming don't care for character nuance, especially not building up random side characters, and they're gonna cram at least 3 plotlines into this episode as far as I can tell JUST from guessing at the cast that came up in the credits... so I'm just dreading what this meeting will actually be written like and what they feel the ghosts will have agreed among themselves off-screen to accept as their reality. 

Like. Rule 1 of writing is to just take even a second to consider the motivation and feelings of everyone you're going to have around in the scene if they're an active participant in it. And ground that in the context as a guide to where all of that comes from. Last we saw, the ghosts were feral, basically non-verbal and chasing people through the streets, now a few hours later they're organised and have nominated a leader??? 

-

If I was writing this episode so far with just what I know from 6 minutes of it, I'd have used the feral ghosts chasing the woman and then had Jack the Ripper pop up and kill her and then be like "GUYS" to the feral horde of ghosts, and then he points out the barrier and is like "seriously we need to be smarter than this if we're going to get out of here" and then all the feral ghosts are like "raaawr! hisss! grrr... oh. Huh. That makes sense. What do you suggest?" and that at least conveys that Jack has more wits about him and is a better smarter ghost with a plan to earn their leadership before we get going and takes about the same time as the cold open we already had, so when we go to this scene you just need to tweak the mood a bit to be less awkward neighbourhood watch and make it a bit more actually creepy (the really heavily haunted house in Safe House is a good example of a house full of ghosts that were freaky as heck! Or the haunted house in 13x05!) than just loitering. Like, put some aesthetic backbone into conveying that they're all ghosts! 

Anyway that's my fix for what is already an episode that I am just not getting along with. 

-

Good morning I watched the scene with Jack the Ripper telling off the other ghosts... I am willing to believe they're all ghosts who have been virulently haunting a place already and had run ins with hunters that sent them down to hell, and that they are the smarter ones, and all popped out of hell with a bit more self intact than the ghosts we saw wasting away in the silly ghost house episode. So those are a bunch of reasons that they would be more likely to recover these really human traits and start to act like the opposite militia to the human militias outside the bubble. Like I totally get what they want to convey here, I just think the storytelling hasn't been up to getting it across in a way that weaves it nicely. Just like, bam, here's this thing happening now. 

The comment about scared ghosts hanging around the edges not joining in makes me think that oh good there are still some feral ones like most of the ones from last episode who aren't in this group, who are still behaving more like the kind of ghosts who are mid-haunting, and barely able to speak humanly. If JtR thinks they're cowards, it may just be that they're less able to join in with this sort of mob mentality Ghosts Rights campaign and be able to track and understand their history from life to death to haunting to hell to back to haunting in the same way he has. It's a lot for a soul to go through!

I mean honestly though, I'm just struggling with how last episode Dabb wrote these completely feral ghosts, and then Buckleming drop right back in with "so they're organised and smart and stand around muttering to each other and looking nervously out of the window" and... aurgh, consistency, you know?? 

We've never had main plot ghosts before except maybe Bobby's ghost and they were extremely lenient with his portrayal because he knew all the inside baseball of being a ghost and hunter. The fact that different writers have always had different takes on what ghosts are and how to portray them overall as a thing in the show's mythology has never actually been much of an issue before, but now it occurs to me that having spent way too much time complaining about little quirks in individual MotW episodes now I'm just trying to survive a main plot episode while seeing all the tiny things I've trained my brain to pick out that I don't like about Buckleming writing and ghosts >.>

-

The hunters have put up such an adorable Quarantine sign, I'm amazed that some of the letters aren't backwards and adorably wonky.

-

Meanwhile the living people sneak back to their mcmansions. I can see a roofline that would make Kate Wagner cry. I wish I had never read any mcmansionhell posts because now I hate these people :P 

-

Ghosts in full daylight look so ridiculous though. Just totally robbed of the dignity of a good scare :'D

-

Okay Cas is now mad at Sam too, because Sam is going full government cover up. Cas is visually differentiated by not having to wear an FBI jacket, because he just always somehow is allowed to do what he wants, including being allowed on a crime scene in his Gas n Sip vest in 9x06. I'm remembering in Nightshifter how Sam went full fed on Ronald Resnik and confiscated all his work investigating the shifter ,and it made all their problems worse. Cas is arguing that Sam is perpetuating another government coverup here and with bodies dropping they're going to cause a problem. 

Which, of course, cutting to them from more ghost attacks after people sneaked in to avoid Sam's draconian rule, is basically telling us that once again Cas is in the right and now this Winchester is messing up. 

-

YAY ROWENA

of course she'd be summoned by the word "murder"

-

I have missed ro-ro

-

"Samuel ;) Castiel ;) ;) ;)"

-

*sits here quietly fuming that Buckleming made Sam and Rowena do the exposition dance for multiple back and forth lines* ... not just that but in a way that made them both look kinda dense and forgetful as if they are as bad as the audience that might not remember the soul bomb from the end of season 11 or put two and two together immediately. RO RO DOESN'T NEED TO BE HAND HELD LIKE A CASUAL VIEWER OH MY GOD.

-

Instead of exposition she could have flirted some more.

-

Blah blah then Ketch shows up. I hope Bobo gets to kill him off for good this season. Still mad about 12x22 being undone.

-

I guess the novelty of a modern day ghost quarantine is too much to keep the likes of him and Rowena away, if something like it hasn't happened since whenever the 2x21 town was abandoned.

-

Really, we're getting a dramatic Singer zoom on Rowena and Ketch having some sort of a moment? Never mind the moment was all exposition reminder dialogue that once again they'd all know. Maybe Rowena's memory is slightly failing and she likes to repeat everything that ever happened to her out loud for her own benefit. 

anyway the last thing we need is Ketch to get a weird sort of thing going with Rowena because hasn't he captured and tortured her pre-introduction to the show? I remember them having some sort of history added between them like that >.> Whatever it is, I feel like a quiet apology is not really something that would cut it to immediately switch to her eyeing him up... I thought any non-buckleming writers gave her a decent self-worth arc with Lucifer when it came to her trauma. Let's not go backwards, people??

-

Oh no Dean don't tell Ketch that Rowena can make gadgets >.>

-

I think Dean is kind of morbidly curious to see how far that goes, but also I think he's rooting for Rowena to eventually smush him as the endgame of that ship :P

-

Hey I have a question, where is Cas now? Has he just excused himself to not be stuck being flirted with by Rowena? "I'm too ace for this nonsense" he says with an eye roll and goes to make sure ghost refugees all have enough toothpaste or whatever.

-

The Belphagor intro scene unfortunately lifts this whole grim mess a bit, and honestly the complete horror perversion of poor Jack's body being walked around in is kind of getting to the point where I'm amused by this guy more than not in just a nervous laughter way. His Ambassadorship definitely knows how to laugh off the tension enough to save his own skin from being exorcised or stabbed in the first moments and then to keep himself just useful and seemingly harmless enough that no one's trying to chase away this big important evil demon who's rocked up into town. (And picked the baby Yoda meatsuit to help his cause.)

Of course Rowena and Ketch both recognise or seem to recognise him from Around. His wikipedia page was such a laff that I can't imagine they haven't run into him in the lore or rumours of what he's done out there in the world. As far as I can tell a demon or angel with an amusingly detailed wiki page basically means we have a celebrity of the likes of Asmodeus or Gadreel in terms of them getting around in the lore. 

-

And then the reason Ketch is in the area is explained because Belf has an ex out there who's decided that now is the time to have him assassinated since he's out wandering around Earth. 

-

Dean says they need Belf - for now. Cue a dramatic look from Belf as he realises that his bonding with Dean has not actually been saving his butt as much as he thought it might be, and that Dean's just a social chameleon who can suck it up and make small talk with a demon for a while even if he's still planning to deal with him as soon as he's no longer necessary. 

-

Now we're in Reno for some reason.

Ah, it's where The Darkness lurks. 

Getting a nice massage and chilling. She seems a million times more socially adjusted just in the first few lines of dialogue, and way less spooky. Firm, powerful as ever, but not spooky. 

Maybe it's just having her hair up in a cute messy bun. 

-

okay so at least in Buckleming episodes Chuck apparently just goes around smiting people? Like, 1: maybe not so wild in terms of characterisations of vengeful gods maybe but 2: he's so far mostly just fucked with people and while his kill count indirectly is enormous, one could say perhaps, most deaths ever, he hasn't in the show itself gone around just murdering people who were in his way, especially for just a conversation. 

it was just snark on the side so maybe he relocated the masseuse and Amara was making a joke about how she had been replaced with Chuck, but... 

yeah idk it's Buckleming, they have a hate-on for God but more specifically Christian institutions and I think even more specifically catholicism.

I would not know where to begin with guessing their interpretation of "Chuck is the big bad this season" vs Dabb's right now. 

-

Rowena goes to Dean for dating advice, as one does when they are eyeing up a guy that Dean may or may not have past history with - worth getting his opinion, anyway, right? She knows some stuff about Dean, and one of those things is that if there was a dude who pings all the tropes of being mean and authoritative while passably attractive, Dean's probably had a Thing with them and can provide some inside details on having an uncomfortable attraction to the wrong dude. 

Sadly there's too much ghost apocalypse going on to have a proper girls night and drink cocktails and really get into the details, though Rowena shows every vibe of thinking Dean would provide her with the gossip 

-

Oh Dean knows that slow heavy tread

-

I am not ready for this at all 

-

The least enthusiastic "hey"s ever exchanged. :( 

-

Cas tries to be adorable and drop a sports reference on the 50:50 chance that if he gets it right he gets a brownie point and if he gets it wrong Dean thinks it's cute

except Dean's too mad at him to think it's cute and swings around to look when Cas tries using Mary as a defence for not being open and honest with Dean. 

Again: show has completely framed Cas as the correct one and Dean as the sulky boy, but Cas is making the first moves to meet Dean in the middle here and apologise if Dean will let him, once more proving Cas is the best and we love him.

-

sorry, that was going to be a meta point but as I chewed it in my brain it really just came down to that.

-

Urgh, angry Dean. He's got that look on his face with camera angles we haven't seen since like, season 9-10 levels of dark angry Dean.

-

He moves to Cas and no longer has him in that lovely over the shoulder spot, to talk to him person to person, moving not just from Cas's mistakes to why he's angry about everything, starting with the entire existential crisis throwing him so far off his axis.

This seems like a repeat of 4x22's "what's so worth saving" except Cas is all sweet and contrite about personal matters, and Dean swings around on him to yell that God has been conning them and everything is fake; it's giving them their sort of stated points they care about right now. Dean lashing out in the same way as:

"Destiny? Don't give me that "holy" crap. Destiny, God's plan... It's all a bunch of lies, you poor, stupid son of a bitch! It's just a way for your bosses to keep me and keep you in line! You know what's real? People, families -- that's real. And you're gonna watch them all burn?"

Had to go grab the quote because it's so interesting that Dean's going off on this again but now Cas has what's "real" as his main priority, and Dean seems to be swinging loose here with Cas's mention of his lost family members, especially Mary as his constant rage button way back when now being a thing again. Remember in 1x01 where he got all up in Sam's face for disrespecting Mary?

And even with an actual apocalypse scenario to handle, Dean doesn't know what he should be fighting for and if there's a point or what sort of endgame there is to this if it's all been a game and a con. Fighting against Chuck is exactly what he wants but Dean has been programmed also not to roll over and die. 

Anyway, my initial read on this is just to be so intrigued by what makes Cas and Sam's approach different when Sam is philosophical about the maze and Cas is sort of ignoring the elephant in the room entirely of the existential crisis and just trying to get things level again between him and Dean, and to have this important FAMILY conversation because he's working within what is real. Perhaps as much a coping mechanism as anything else in their philosophies: to make that rock solid to stand on in the new existential void. 

So obviously Dean's like fuck off I'm aaaangry.

-

Cas is like, no, I am angry too, Chuck took Jack from me. MY CHILD. MY BABY YODA. I had the mandolorian helmet all picked out for his Christmas present and now - *breaks off to bite back a sob into his hand* 

-

"It doesn't mean it was ALL a lie"

Wow there has not been a "now kiss" moment of tension between them for a while but that was one where Cas swayed a lil forward as the camera met them facing side on to it so, that was a little adrenaline spike for me I had not expected :P 

-

Cas coming in here dropping the most well-balanced philosophy about the whole deal and all very angry and tense at the same time and honestly this is the second sexiest argument about our purpose in the cosmos after *gestures at the entire of The Good Place* 

-

Cas is coming to a stop here horrified that Dean doesn't seem to think that they did well and no longer believes in what they had stood for and the victories they won together. 

Dean's sort of embodying a complete nihilism that's been the defining feature of his previous horrible moods, but Cas was dead for the last one so he hasn't had much experience of Dean like this lately.

-

Obviously the solution to this problem is that Dean is out of balance, needs the big win against God, and then he can see the worth of all they've done together as its own property outside of the maze, and it's awfully convenient that Cas is now the landing pad for it, just as Dean's philosophy was the natural landing pad for where Cas was at by the end of season 4/start of season 5.

-

Just fall into his aaaarms.

-

But yeah right now Dean's still "NOTHING IN OUR LIVES IS REAL" and he can't even cling to the stuff he has made, because Sam's been thrown every which way for Chuck's amusement - all the pain they've had to bear is because of Chuck's plans, and Cas, as an angel, even one who thinks he deviated from the Divine Plan all that time ago, has just ended up in the same maze with him, and they just ended up going through stupid hurdles betraying each other and stuff for no reason.

Dean carries SO MUCH HURT through the show - whenever he starts lashing out he will start pulling out all the betrayals and all his baggage and throw it down accusingly on the table, and now he learns that there's one root cause and it was just for FUN at a cosmic level? His lack of trust is understandable as someone who usually reacts to shock betrayals this way, but with Chuck not in range, and his sense of reality knocked askew, Cas is catching a lot of unfair flak for this. He's trying to stand up for what was essentially the philosophy Sam had but he's trying to push a much harder line about basing reality on it and being pissed at Dean for slipping, because maybe just Dean lets himself slip more around Cas than Sam in general and specifically he's already mad at Cas so he's revealing his whole baggage to him in this amazing rant, but in doing so also seeming to blame Cas for being as dumb as he was.

-

Oh no.

"Dean."

-

*me, staring at the paused screen, breathing hard: "Dean, we're real, I love you."*

-

"You asked what about all of this is real," Cas says and I am now wondering if this is buckleming fuckery where they really would get to be the one to write the "Us" because fuck them, they're so unsubtle, they think if they're going to write romantic tinged lines then write the damn telenovella of Destiel 

-

"We are"

-

ahaaaaaaaaa *wheeze*

-

well the good news they didn't take any writing classes before the final season 

-

Hahahahaaaa Dean's retreated to patrol with Ketch. 

They better start gossiping about Rowena 

I mean I viscerally hate the concept, but if we're here we're here so I've got to exert my own control on how I consume the narrative

Hopefully at some point I've already written a long essay about how Chuck as the big bad is really just the feeling of horror of tumbling into the twists and turns of a Buckleming episode and seeing all these big unsubtle thumb prints all over everything. 

-

I mean we just went from Dean to Dean to Dean, is anyone else even in this episode? Samuel who? 

-

Pfft just Ketch asking Dean about "the witch" - way less personal and Dean immediately scoffs it off... I kind of like him protecting Rowena and knowing that Ketch is such a bastard. He's not like, oh rowena banged gabriel, of course she's wandering around hooking up with all the most annoying people I know. 

Maybe his powerlessness to stop them being drawn together is a metaphor for his feeling of being trapped in the maze, and whatever he says to advise them to keep their hands off, they're still going to sneak off to make out behind the bike shed

I mean we're literally in a highschool

-

where are the riverdale childrens

-

Are you kidding me, we went to a 4th scene from Dean's POV checking out the meat packing plant with Ketch

...

no that wasn't a euphemism

-

The missing hunters are called Ben and Frankie, and I'm just wondering if Frankie & Benny's is a restaurant chain in the US too

-

Oh of course this is a Samwise Gamgee pretending to be huge and terrifying and then coming around the corner and being a cute little hobbit reveal, to bring Kevin's ghost back.

Yay Kevin, but boo Buckleming who murdered him in the first place now apologetically cramming him into their episodes. This better be for more than this episode and other writers get to play with him too. 

Poor fucker has been a ghost for 3 years, then got to go to Heaven for 2, and now he's back? 

Honestly, I'm changing my entire wishlist for the show to one item:

  * give Kevin Tran a fucking break



I will now view the entire show from this perspective forever.

-

Oh, and of course the dramatic build up, cut to ads, and continuation of drama does mean we're now 5 Dean POV scenes in a row and as far as I know Sam and Belphegor have been playing poker the entire time 

-

Cas shows up furious like, Deal me in, and joins them after his last scene

-

Rowena is there too btw

-

Oh my god Ketch thinks he is cool enough to be a "former assassin" shut up

-

So apparently Kevin was never even sent to Heaven, and I don't know if that qualifies as worse or better than being yanked around sent one way and the other. If this is all part of Chuck's games and he just shoved Kevin in some metaphysical locker for a few years once he was done using him to manipulate Sam and Dean in 11x21, then was he specifically released to do anything now? Will Buckleming make Kevin backstab them to get to Heaven? Like, he's several days late to the party and is this Chuck upping the ante with the ghost problem by putting Kevin onto the board too?

-

I'm remembering 2x21 and how Azazel was moving the kids in in sets of fives to fight and leaving the reigning champ behind. 

Constance Welch didn't cut it, so maybe Kevin will.

-

Of course we had a reminder of Dean's Kevin trauma in 13x05 or whatever episode it was where Billie came back as God, because of the kid there who Dean couldn't reach in time and Dean was determined to get him and all the ghosts moved on - Billie did it then but now Dean has to vow to get Kevin to Heaven for real this time, so he's once more got the burden of Kevin's fate on his shoulders. 

How many times is he going to be tested about this?

On the other hand it was resolved so neatly in 11x21 that there was no victory in the sense that you have to fight to get every emotional resolution and then Chuck was like, oh hey I put Kev back for you. 

-

Hm. 

-

I don't trust that he's just got bad boy rep for being cast down by God (wait, WAS he in heaven? Now I am confused for sure >.>) so suddenly he can mingle and all. 

They might get an inside man on the ghosts and their plans but what exactly is Kevin getting out of this? It seems... too simple... 

-

Chuck watching a nature documentary, then some food channel, but instead of making food he's called room service, taking a short cut, and is being annoying about how it takes so long to get a burger... Not that they've been symbolic food for anything like, idk, humanity, through the show. The message about cheating and not working for himself is blatant.

While he's being annoying, Amara is trying to be as zen as possible, doing yoga, and we see her room has blatant Indian imagery on the wall now, conveying that she seems to be on some sort of high end meditation spa retreat, perhaps to try and learn more chill so she doesn't destroy all creation again.

And Chuck just hanging out testing her limits. 

-

Chuck doing what Lucifer did 2 seasons ago, trying to get the one family member he kinda sorta cares about to abscond to another reality/world with him to avoid the heat.

He suggests Amara and he create a new species and do the project all over again together, engaging in their family business of being cosmic deities.

Amara, however, is enjoying the simpler pleasures of hanging out with gamblers, and winning. Gambling is getting big rewards from theoretically small input, very unlike the hard work of like, actually managing creation properly, and with the risk of huge losses. There's no tending - a streak in the game is a construct of the imagination to pretend the odds are personified, and she's too cosmic for me to think she really believes she's got that without either manipulating it herself, or knowing it's just a game and that right now it's all going her way but it doesn't MEAN anything. Anyways considering how many runs Chuck's had at Creation he seems to be gambling more than she thinks, because he has been throwing the dice with his apocalypse story arc over and over in so many AUs

And then she realises that he actually does need her, and maybe those gamblers are more like him - that he's made a huge play that didn't work and now is about to lose his own game if he doesn't fight back hard. 

I mean, we have angels canonically saying they helped make parts of Creation like the Grand Canyon so really what DID Chuck do aside from emotionally scarring everyone? His whole thing has always been that he bailed and left them all to it. To see how this latest run of the simulation worked out... 

-

And then they have a blatant conversation about needing each other - Chuck plays it off as needing her like oh you're my big sis. Obviously since they exist light and dark and if one dies things go to heck it is true that they ~need~ each other. But she is talking about emotional need, and being fascinated to see Chuck actually reaching out to her for HELP. 

The need vs want thing is still very much unresolved, with Dean having told Cas he needed him but still struggling against the concept of WANTING him and so it's always good to get counter examples, especially in wildly unsubtle bucklemingese because it makes the point so much clearer about what the show's language is for this.

-

Omg she has the Mark on her shoulder and it's right about where Chuck has been shot

-

Linking him to Sam almost exactly like the freaking Mark omg.

-

Does "not complete" imply some of Chuck bounced back to Sam? :P

-

Oh dear, we cut to the next day and it's Sam and ... Dean.

I don't think Sam exists in this episode as a singular entity.

I'm mostly upset that Rowena is distracted with Ketch so I can't joke she and Sam hooked up off screen.

-

Hahahhaa Belf sneaks up on them. So much like having an annoying kid brother following them when they want to go play and then they realise he's there and it's like oh no now we're babysitting you and have to do rubbish little kid stuff.

-

Belf is arguing he has dibs on Kevin. Oh dear. 

Honestly I think he just wants to assert himself that he's not JUST helping them and actually set some real demonic boundaries :P

I'm not sure how I would feel about shipping ghost!Kevin and Jack!Belf as a messed up "you and I are the only ones who know what's up here" thing

but wait wasn't I mistrusting Kev earlier? What if he and Belf already have a deal going? Hahahaha omg that would be wild. God sends Kev down to hell, Belf is like wow a celebrity and Kev is like oh my god fuck everything and especially fuck the Winchesters, how did they get me to die for their manpain three times already and Belf is like, wow, okay, this is interesting, so do you mean, like, fuck the winchesters or FUCK the winchesters first of all, and if so - 

-

What if Kevin had been demonised in Hell and he's just pretending to be a ghost

-

(Trying to get ahead of the non-stop buckleming plot twist train)

-

Anyway now he's dropping in on the exposition ghosts, who have been loudly repeating the same warning that has been in the last 2 scenes hereabouts. 

-

I like the ridiculous fake chrome pineapple behind Kev

-

I mean they could just as easily be scared of Kevin because he was Belf's side piece as if it was because of the woooo God spat me back out of Hell thing.... This story already isn't making sense when it comes to why he's special if he was in Hell he would have been released with everyone else, and if he wasn't, why do they all know him 

Honestly if Kev failed to negotiate a room full of ghosts it would be exactly the sort of useless on brand for Belf if they were in cahoots. I really don't want to like this concept as much as I do... Perhaps my brain is flailing desperately for a life raft in this :P

-

Ew, Rowena and Ketch flirting over her making potions in a school lab

I hope this place gets disinfected later. 

Blah blah comparing them as a man of science and spooky witch, she's getting her magic all up in those beakers and such, Ketch is... writing equations and drawing compounds on the whiteboard like he's doing actual science? 

Who even knows what they're trying to achieve here. Maybe distracting them with a schoolteacher fantasy is the obstacle in the way of them achieving the mcguffin which fixes the episode and that's the entire dramatic tension here. 

-

Considering the pacing, I genuinely wouldn't be able to guess because we might get 8 more Dean scenes and then cut to them rumpled and hurrying in at the last minute with the fix

-

Oh my god that was a terrible scene but at least once again the show demonstrating its love of metaphor and innuendo

I was thankfully distracted by the group chat where my BFF from school told us that her son thinks she puts tampons up her bum which was charmingly grounding

-

Honestly I just wish Buckleming would stop having all their baddies call Rowena "Red"... it's getting to the point where I can't tell if they're all Lucifer parallels or if it's tired writing.

From the previous scene, I'd guess tired writing :P 

Anyway obviously she knows the Jack the Ripper guy. She likes dangerous murdery men.

(why has she not made the smart choice and gone for Sam?)

-

"Tell the Winchesters we have their boy" 

Not the right boy, but a boy. A trial run for Jack, honestly. Now we know they have an endgame boy, Kevin is for sure one of the inspirations and is retroactively now build up to the endgame.

... 

Why is there such a bias against teenage adoption, honestly. The show is making a powerful case for it with every under-20 who drops by :P 

-

OH I DO LOVE TO SEE KETCH BEATEN OVER THE HEAD

-

"He may still be fighting them!" 

Ro. Your new boy toy lasted like... a second.

Fired off his shot and out light a light, if we're going to be as gross as Buckleming :P

-

Hilariously (or not) the Winchesters ask for clarification on who "your boy" is

-

Wait if they use the soul catcher, Kev will be sucked up too.

-

Oh, guess they got them one at a time and then the rest ran away

-

Cas hasn't seen Kevin since like... 8x22

-

Oh, that emotional reunion lasted a while

-

At least Belf gets to be sarcastic for a bit!

I am starting to unironically root for him, help me.

-

Ketch shows up, conspicuously not wearing his iron chain? I think? Either that or it's all rucked up under his jacket where I can't see it.

-

Oh, obviously Ketch comes with Rowena - he's not gonna shove her to a hundred ghosts is he?

He doesn't know only Sam can kill her

-

IS IT SMART TO PULL THE GHOSTS **THROUGH** YOUR MAGICAL ANTI GHOST BARRIER

-

doesn't matter anyway, she's down

-

Lol Dean wasted all his shots having fun shooting the ghosts through the barrier

-

Someone punch Francis while he's monologuing.

-

AHAHAH Dean just straight up shot Ketch I LOVE IT

-

Dean said fuck off you can't sleep with Ro Ro she's my friend and friends don't let friends sleep with scumbags

-

Dean looks to Belf for the final confirmation that all the ghosts are contained.

-

Does Cas get to keep the lump of rock with the Jack the Ripper ghost? He keeps a lot of the weird dangerous plot shit, I swear.

-

Hahaha Ketch being loaded onto a gurney. Off you go! Shoo!

-

Oh no, Cas's healing didn't work... He really is season 5-ing it down here with the mortals

-

Omg are they making it sentimental that Dean only shot Ketch with non-fatal wounds? Please stop. 

\- 

Anyway Dean makes a comment about how shooting him was the only way so marking that down as creative solutions later - Chuck has been non-fatally shot as well with a bullet that had magic properties, just as Ketch had iron rounds shot into him to get rid of the ghost. Don't think Chuck and Ketch are great parallels aside from being annoying and Rowena having crushed on them, but Dean giving a statement on his problem solving and sense of feeling he *had* to shoot makes for an early example of problem solving even if it's way too early to wonder about real foreshadowing. 

-

Dean then has a weird moment watching Rowena watch Ketch, someone who she almost slept with but then ran out of time, be wheeled away into the ambulance. She can try again later, if that's really what the show wants (ugh please be Buckleming) but in this case at least we have to go through Dean's POV that he's seeing a crazy young couple try and make something of it in this mad world when they knew the stakes and how pointless the whole maze was blah blah human connection blah blah sparks flew 

anyway mostly just curious that this was filtered all through Dean's perspective, of being asked by both about each other and then seeing the end result of it, and his actions especially being what's ended up cockblocking them.

dean

are you in fact the biggest cockblock in your own life?

-

Okay here we are having a chat with Kevin. 

Sadly he and Belf don't seem to be on great terms, with Belf being the chill sunglasses equivalent of the Alastair to Kevin's Dean, except they're all just standing around talking in a calm way about being tortured forever. As you do. Kevin decides that Earth is better than Hell just on principle in the way that almost everyone does, as it's the main chess board. There's still agency, even if there's a nasty end. At least he has a choice about whether Belf drags him back to hell or he chooses to go vengeful up here. There's always a choice. 

-

Obligatory "i love you" that honestly for Kevin might just be stockholm syndrome then coupled with the sheer relief of seeing Winchesters again after years in Hell. Better anything on earth than here!

-

He and Belf have a weird moment, and then Belf lets him out. Kevin is free to... haunt his way wherever he wants I guess?

Godspeed, Kev 

-

Shame there wasn't a greater hilarious conspiracy there. I would have enjoyed that a lot more.

-

Anyway the terrible twins.

AMARA IN A BANANA YELLOW SUIT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT

She's discovered colour and she's never going back.

-

I hope she's about to go sell Chuck out to Dean immediately. 

-

Chuck, I think, immediately worries the same thing.

-

He's not too great at talking his way through shit... You'd think he would be aware not to piss off someone he needs something from by saying he "fronts the group" because she's getting solo artist who's just dropped the album of their career after splitting from the group vibes everywhere right now and I love it. 

Of course Chuck's greatest flaw is acting like a misogynist privileged dude at every possible turn so of COURSE he does this to himself right now.

-

So we get the epic call out. Nom nom nom.

-

She's become her "better self" and honestly there's tropes in there for her that are to convey she's somewhat hipster and annoying but she's a hell of a sight better than Chuck and always was, but also is definitely improved and self-aware from her season 11 journey in a way where she screams competent adult... Absolutely capable of being a jerk I'd bet, but she is working on finding her peace and Buckleming are throwing all the tropes in the book at that concept and I'm proud of Amara.

-

Oh she is LIVING for the fact that Chuck's stuck hanging out on Earth to answer for his crimes as long as she feels like it and getting her taste of revenge for how he treated her. 

-

Go get a kale smoothie, dear. You've earned it.

-

Then, the squad hangs out looking up at all the souls pouring out of hell and are like oh no what do we do, we have to stop them... How??

... go to a BOBO EPISODE!?


	3. 15x03

15x03 watching notes

-

Oh wow the recap is like 100% about Belf, my new favourite ambassador. 

He hasn't been doing a whole lot of sowing discord or seducing men to sloth with offers of money so we'll see how he goes today.

Sounds like his horrible girlfriend might show up since the mentions of her are in the recap again... I entirely forgot about it in all the nonsense last episode.

-

oh, what no, don't remind us that Rowena can only die by Sam's hand! WHY WOULD YOU REMIND US OF THAT? I DIDN'T NEED TO REMEMBER

-

OH NO EVERYONE CHANGED CLOTHES AND THE JACKET IS BACK 

Also rowena is in a GLORIOUS pink gown, so good luck to her D: 

She hasn't been putting on the gowns for action for a while, and this is weird that in Buckleming last episode she had a pantsuit but now she's glammed up for Bobo?

-

Oh dear they have a nice easy sounding plan

I hate it

-

they can just walk right past the ghosts because they're so busy whooshing out of hell they can't see the Squad walking right underneath them

-

To be fair, these seem to be 4 of the most dangerous beings in the universe and Belphagor.

-

The- 

the mausoleum...

  
says

Carver

-

At least this time they get to set up with proper tools - iron and salt everywhere.

-

Ghosts immediately begin rudely knocking. Wow. 

-

"Hi, I just moved in from Hell, and I was wondering if I could borrow a cup of sugar"

-

Oh no, Rowena! I don't think she could have ghost PTSD, especially as she never met the clown, so are they messing with her? I have to assume so as she's tougher than being freaked out by a few ghosts. Bobo wouldn't do her so dirty.

-

"We're all going to die!" 

That's so not how she behaves unless something very dramatic just happened to her. She's CRYING?

-

"Drink... a REAL drink" cue Sam rolling his eyes at Dean when he pretends not to know what that means and that he has exactly what she's asking for on his person.

-

Belf gets in there with some mean comment about Rowena failing, as a reminder that the kid is mean now. 

Is he turning on them?

-

Oh good, he and Rowena are competing and he's smug that his spell worked better than hers, even if it's now failing. He's bought them DAYS of time.

-

Aww no Rowena... she's actually crying... because she feels the pain of all the ghosts and the horror of the impending end of the world by angry ghost-pocalypse? She's changed so much! I mean Belf did help create a sense that she was upset that her powers weren't enough and she immediately started adding stuff about how if she'd arrived earlier she could have done something to help etc etc, like, she has to emphasise she WOULD have been up to the task. But the sheer power of the ghosts and their rage and all... She gets hit with all the emotion and it makes her realise there's some stuff she's just not powerful enough to handle. It's an interesting way of taking her down using a combination not just of the power but also the empathy, especially as it's something she's extremely unpracticed at so feeling bad for the ghosts and everyone else is just... staggering to her, I suppose.

Kinda loving the opportunity to roll from buckleming Rowena to bobo Rowena and see the sudden appearance of deep deep layers and nuanced character building.

-

Belf goes off to... get some air? Do some spooky shit? Who knows. Cas hurries after.

Dean stays behind to yell, at Rowena and Sam, and Sam puts a hand out like, woah, dude, you have not seen Rowena get emotionally mauled like I have, we have to be gentle with her sometimes! She has feelings too! 

I adore him silently standing up for her.

-

I didn't take in anything that happened after that in a complete shipper trash fugue state.

-

Oh, just Sam being extremely concerned about her and her begging a moment of time while looking like a freaking painting, sitting there all dramatically posed and fiddling with the whiskey.

(See, Dean does know how to support her too :P)

-

Aww, Belf complaining that Cas doesn't support him enough. 

This is definitely analogous to dealing with Jack as an annoying angsty teen, where he suddenly is all too cool for his dads and starts wearing sunglasses all the time and stuff. Gets into witchcraft. Tearing hearts out. The usual.

-

He just wanted to go have a peek down into Hell, since there happens to be a nearby hellmouth to admire. 

-

Push him in, Cas.

-

Dean somehow takes the wrong message entirely from Sam's earlier pep talks, and is getting ready to mount an assault on all the ghosts, armed only with a salt shotgun. Which... only banishes them briefly. Really, Dean, what are you planning on doing long term? It's a suicide run if you think about it for even a second past "I want to shoot some ghosts" 

But he says he wants to be free and I guess having the choice to die like a dumbass is right there.

-

Wait.

Dean is just mad that GHOSTPOCALYPSE is Chuck's chosen ending to the story?

"HAVE SOME CREATIVITY, MAN" he yells at the sky "REMEMBER HOW TIGHTLY PLOTTED THE APOCALYPSE ARC WAS?"

He just has integrity about good storytelling, and this is why I love Dean mostest.

-

Sam goes in to check in on Rowena, being a big heart going around trying to prop up all the sad people around him. He also tried to admit to being freaked out to Dean but Dean was too busy being angry to pat Sam on the head and tell him it would be okay.

Someone give Sammy a hug.

-

I am so scared at how Alex can weaponise that cute little Jack smile like :3 into this completely shit-eating smirk.

I don't wike it.

Anyway Cas is suspicious of my new horrible demon son, and realises they can pretty much talk man to man about Weird Shit like both having this understanding of how it's not a hellgate, just a tear in reality between hell and earth. And Belf having an idea about it. 

But not before he mocks Cas for meeting his "eyes" and Cas has to snap that he doesn't have eyes, because of course Belf is feeding off the angst he generates just by existing near Cas.

-

Oh good! We're invoking Lilith because I bet Belf really was a buddy of hers.

Omg what do you bet if Belf was in a vessel with eyes he'd be wigging them out with white eyes (hence the white-framed sunglasses) and he really is on the Alastair and Lilith tier of demon. 

But yeah he seems to be a very old, established and named demon who has a fair amount of lore about him so why not suggest he was a BFF with Lilith back in the day. He knows a ton of magic so it's clear he's a super important, old demon even without the snatch of backstory he's given us.

-

Lilith having problems controlling the flock once they're all free of Hell... sounds familiar. Even with Ruby not actually being a rival, in season 3 they still had a whole bunch of demon problems with competing egos and demons who just wanted to party. If this turns out to be something she lost down the sofa cushions before the apocalypse, it would be a hilarious explanation of why only Ruby could actually be trusted with the plan, because there was just no guarantee most demons wouldn't immediately backstab them for short term gains of power. It took actually starting to break seals for all the demons to realise she was actually serious about it, I think :P

-

I hope this suck all the demons back into hell thing isn't as bad as the "closing the gates of hell forever" plan. It sounds a bit more like just closing the window after chasing a bug around with a newspaper to make it leave, maybe. 

Hopefully.

-

Awwwwwwww Rowena's mind goes to HEALING the earth to fix the tear!

-

AW ROWENA CALLING DIBS ON SAM

I love her just improvising up a whole spell and being so smart and amazing and okay maybe I am more in love with Rowena and just projecting that she should end up with Sam so SOMEONE worthy gets to make out with her before the end.

-

"YOu#RE AS CLOSE TO A SEASONED WITCH ADS WREVE GOT IN THI SLOT"

*weeps in witch!Sam* 

never mind that Cas actually... can... do a bunch of spells?

Shush. Don't kill my vibe, me :P

Let's just say he does way too much enochian angely magic and not enough that Rowena approves of.

-

IS BELPHEGOR SERIOUSLY TRYING TO RECRUIT CAS AS MUSCLE TO GO TO HELL WITH HIM?

He wants to go down to hell with Cas to get something that Lilith had. 

Gyaaah.

I'm kinda desperate for Cas to go. Kinda think this is terrifying and emotionally gruelling and he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to, no one will judge him :P

-

OI DEAN YOU CAN'T JUST VOLUNTEER CAS TO GO LIKE THAT

... he was dreading that with belf going to hell and Sam as assistant to Rowena, that he'd be left alone with Cas. Like, he's that kid trying not to get paired up on the field trip.

Pfft. 

-

"You've been to Hell before" Oh COME ON YOU ASSHOLE 

-

that was the meta on that comment. Just. Fuck off, Dean :'D

-

Cas's EYEBROWS when he thinks to himself, wow, Dean really said that, this is really where we are as a family, huh? I am not going to let him forget this later. 

That was a whole angry rant deleted from his text messages and responded to with "okay don't have a choice lol :)" and just one moment of raised eyebrows to himself.

-

Rowena is detecting a lot of uncomfortable energies in this room that she did not expect, because Dean isn't fawning all over Cas, and that's her baseline.

-

Bobo drops by Ketch in his hospital bed to laugh at him that Buckleming got him shot.

-

Oh, or I guess have him actually genuinely intent on getting back to the fray and helping, but now he has a demon bothering him. 

OH, Belf's friend. Excellent.

Ketch in a demon fight while a little high on painkillers and having lost a bunch of blood etc after being shot 2-3 times.

Oh my goodness, he's actually protecting them. That's amusing. He's caught feelings. This, he thinks, reflecting on how Dean didn't shoot to kill him, is what it's like having friends.

-

(it's not, but don't tell him now while he's on a roll)

-

OH that looked important

*cackles*

I hope this means he had a heroic death that Buckleming can be satisfied with at least in the final freaking season.

That's his literal heart. We are in such a heart-ripping season! I am delighted.

He caught feels for Rowena and as a result he had a flicker of redemption and his heart was literally pulled out of his chest.

-

Belf teasing Cas about how he plans to get back out of hell. Come on, my boy Cas can get in and out if he wants! I'd like to see a demon try and stop him.

Also teasing Cas about how he doesn't seem to be particularly loved by his friends. An old, old refrain that Cas has heard a lot when ironically it was a lot less obvious than it is right now when it's very obviously observed by Belf, than when in the past I think it was less visible to the bad guys who were not just casually chilling in the same room as them for a few days before dropping the snide observations.

So, yeah, this one seems to hurt more than usual because Dean is right in the middle of viciously rejecting Cas and Cas Has Done Nothing Wrong Ever In His Life And I Love Him, which is not usually how I feel in these fights - normally I can see that there's a side for both. Nah, Dean's just being a dick from unrelated angst that is NOT CAS'S FAULT. 

-

OH that look on Cas's face... Push him in and go get a mcflurry.

-

Aw, I guess Cas is too good to fuck off after that.

-

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

-

Did Dean just say "RIP Hedwig" to the owl skull? 

-

He can't pretend he's not a nerd ever again, I will kill him myself.

-

WOW, DEAN, being rude to Rowena for her spell not working? COME ON, BUDDY. PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER. 

I really like this new hunter because she sounds kinda freaked out by ghosts and that's adorable but she also looks like she can handle it, but at the same time, this is a TON OF GHOSTS and she's presumably not used to this sort of nonsense or being in the loop on God Hates Us

-

"You'll be the only thing standing between those ghosts and the world" Sam handing over a burden of responsibility to other hunters, but it's good because Rowena has him here where he's needed as her lab assistant, so he HAS to delegate, and he has experience enough with that these days that he can allow other hunters to take a frontline hero duty and not have himself or a trusted one of 2 other people he loves also there to see it done.

-

Would like to know her name though, and yes, I know, I suck, I rarely catch names the first 10 times they're said in canon so maybe we already know it.

-

Oh my god Dean needs to be more critical of this text message. It doesn't say "pip pip" as a sign off. That's not Ketch, buddy!

-

I love that he gets a ghastly shot of being dead in the background. Let's just really focus on him being dead for a bit. Mm. Bobo is not out to make sure he stays down after 12x22 or anything nope

-

"working the hellhole solo" is a euphemism and he rejected Cas ("Cass" whoever that is) from doing it with him so now he's asking Ketch to do it.

Although he's also said that Bel is in Hell, and I like that rhyme. Cas and Bel are going to hell, Rowena and Sam are doing a spell *starts beatboxing*

(I. don't. I am very white and non-musical, don't even try imagining me beatboxing.)

-

Meanwhile this demon has to work out how to ask politely where the hell hole is without sounding like a demon that's just torn a guy's heart out of his chest and stolen his phone.

-

"it's awfully quiet down here." "YEAH. TOO quiet." Don't make fun of Cas, Belf. He's trying to make conversation despite how much he hates all of this, and that's a big step up from where we were this morning! 

though, I mean. Low hanging fruit for Belf. Hell is literally emptying which is... why... they're here...

-

Sorry Cas, I award Belf a point this one time.

-

"Sorry... I thought we were doing a bit."

I'd say he was also the demon of being annoying but honestly he's got too many job descriptions already.

-

Oh, right, Cas was angling to get to how His Abassadorship wanted protection in an empty Hell. It was Belf who wanted to get Cas alone for a chat.

Because of course this is extremely fishy and Belf had a motive to finally single Cas out. Better make this good, Ambelfador.

-

"I think I'm growing on them. Like a cancer." That's... almost sweet for a demon. 

Does he have reverse jack syndrome, where instead of being extremely adoptable, he's utterly horrible but just really wants to be adopted?

-

"SAM AND DEAN ARE JUST USING YOU. DON'T MISTAKE THAT FOR CARING ABOUT YOU"

I am WOUNDED. Oh CASTIEL. HUGS. Even if he's had so much progress towards acceptance, this is him expressing that last hurdle of the nasty little voice in his head between him and snuggling with Dean every movie night at the Bunker from here on out. Or, you know, just feeling confident enough to be the one to suggest in the family group chat that HE will be the one to do the barbecue this weekend, thanks, I know how to work it, and I am a completely valid dad. Look, I built a deck. I will play catch in the yard.

-

*peers between fingers to see if I've snarked out enough pain to continue yet*

-

"Aw you learned that the hard way?"

*hides immediately*

-

*sad music* *slow zoom on Cas* *whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine from Lizzy*

-

Now Belf is challening Cas about this "seething resentment" which honestly you have to know the demons know all about the Winchesters and that Cas has to be included in the gossip or else why would Belf even be challenging Cas to explain his bad attitude towards him since he's a Known Accomplice of Crowley or Meg when it comes to gossipy demons speculating about The Angel.

-

Belf really is chill about being called an abomination. I'm sure he just wanted Cas to say it because he's a really annoying demon and wanted to hurt Cas some more. 

I mean what else does he stand to gain from hurting Cas like this, except it's always a bonus brownie point to hell if you sow discord between the Winchesters and Cas, and poking Cas's buttons just to see what makes him snap is a way to at least give everyone a bad day. And he's seen how Dean is treating Cas right now. 

-

Also: I'm totally down with Belf hanging out winding up Cas just so he will growl out more speeches like that

-

Belf just like. Shove. Go on Cas, open door. This is why we're in Hell together.

Payback for the earlier shove into the pit.

-

Okay Belf was hoarding all the cool demons to be his friends. His table at the cafeteria in hell? The best table. 

RIP his friend whose name I didn't catch but died showing off his sweet ring.

-

Honestly not sure rather than a cafeteria table, Belf and squad weren't always just getting high behind the bleachers or whatever the trope is in American high school stuff and therefore missed all the hell drama to date, hence coming out of the woodwork only now at the end of days.

-

"Really?"  
"We came for one thing and one thing only"

I absolutely adore Cas's ability to come across as a stern angel and the adult in the room now in this context, which he has been deeply lacking in Carver era but now Carver is dead in the ground according the mausoleum, and Cas is allowed to be a BAMF.

-

Ooh is this one of those things where there's demon warding on the box so an angel has to open - wait

is this a fucked up Crypt Scene parallel?

*stretches and cracks neck*

-

Holy shit Cas gets to read enochian, this episode is pure Cas fan self-indulgence. Thanks, Bobo.

-

Oh Belf for sure knew the box was here and that it had enochian all over it. He's probably noodled around Lilith's private quarters before while she was alive and seen it.

Don't ask why else he was here

-

Also fucked up to make poor Cas read anything praising Lucifer.

-

OMG I am so slow... is there anything extra fucked up about Belf making off with the meatsuit of Lucifer's son?

To be fair, I think of Lucifer being Jack's pappa about 0% of the time when listing his parentage in my head, so forgive me for missing it.

-

BELF WANTS CAS TO SING?

Okay, Bobo. Okay. 

*raises hand nervously* Am I still meant to be reading this as a crypt scene parallel in any way?

-

Aside from anything else this is also just fucking with Misha

-

Oh thank goodness we hear Cas starting to raise his voice in song and we cut away.

-

Dean like "oh, cool. Hell. Been there. Lousy weather."

-

Dean leans on a grave that says just "Our Hearts" with the text cropped by the frame

-

"And magic isn't fighting?" Aw Rowena schooling Sam on being able to do huge power moves from a safe quiet place while others are risking their lives in a more obvious way. 

yes, Sammy, you should run point from a command centre while doing badass spells, it would suit you splendidly.

-

"Oh Cas, your voice... it's like... an angel." Shut up Belf.

-

Come on, Cas, can you trust this horrible little demon to sit here in Jack's meatsuit and close hell over his head and blow this horn for you? 

He is offering a headstart at least? 

-

Oh, hello, here's the confrontation I wanted front row seats for :D Poor Cas getting chucked aside right as he decided to hand over the horn and trust Belf an inch.

(Chucked? Hm. I guess we're blaming all narrative convenience on him right now. Which, unfortunately, means it's up to him as well if Cas escapes hell in time or not, right?)

-

Fight fight fight!

I love that Belf was angling for King of Hell. I mean, who isn't trying to rule Hell these days? 

Sam banned it a while back but honestly who even remembers that any more. Belf can take tacit permission after hanging out with them all a little.

-

With ... Ardat? showing up, this does become a crypt scene because there was a fundamental moment of trust and handing over an artefact, which did not happen with the angel tablet. Though the emotional charge is between Cas and Belf, Ardat shows up to provide the beat down since they weren't going to fight each other. And she's the one who uses the setting of a room full of empty boxes in a demon's hoarding chamber which is literally like, the demon rung below a Lucifer crypt, to do the beat down on Cas and Belf. Now Cas has to decide in this fight who he will kill or save, or perhaps Belf will save him or whatever. The first gestures of a headstart and being about to give him the horn were all just words in a way without a fight to prove any intent... Now we get to see how Belf's plan works for him or not once it's got immediate life or death stakes. There's no mind control whatsoever, with Ardat being an actual secondary presence, so this is more like the 12x10 example with Ishim doing the beating. 

Very much the box, setting and other incidental things which led me to thinking this should go on the list rather than the stakes of the fight, which is more like it could be any old high stakes fight in the game, but the set dressing is too good to leave off.

-

Yep, Belf kills her, and leaves Cas, I would guess, to decide how well he can answer to these charges, with the trust game amped right back up. 

-

I can't believe Cas is this upset that Belf had a secret motive to be king of hell. EVERY DEMON HAS A SECRET MOTIVE TO RULE HELL. This is just his turn on the merry go round.

Cas is probably just mad because he got punched a lot for it.

-

I mean, come on, Belf was an ambassador to France, he's had actual training in the political shit needed to run Hell, which I would stress, MANY others have not had. 

-

"I don't want to rule hell" "then what do you want?" "You should go" *YEEET*

poor Cas. it's been a day. 

-

Honestly, I can't help liking Belf, and this is presumably going to come kick me in the teeth with 14 minutes of episode left. I'm sitting here like, naaah let's hear the snarky demon out.

-

Oh wait no dammit I hit play after a brief break to cool down and he immediately started monologuing about EATING ALL THE HELL SOULS, DAMMIT BELF THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA AND THE NO.1 PERSON TO TELL YOU NOT TO EAT ALL THE SOULS TO BECOME A GOD IS RIGHT HERE

tell him, Cas

-

Stop misappropriating Jack's adorable smile for that nasty smirk! *hits belf with a rolled up newspaper*

-

OMG SAM AND ROWENA HOLD HAAAANDS 

She's wearing her iron chain as a trendy chunky bracelet, I love it

This is a marriage ceremony.

-

Rowena is SO THRILLED to get to do this with Sam, for sure. That "Sam" she just said was in the huskiest voice she's used to date on the show. I'm shook.

-

Wait, so Dean has the means to be the one to chuck the thing in to potentially trap Cas in Hell?

That's ironically horrible. I only just put it properly together now he has a glowy hexbag that it's his choice which decides when the seal closes the ground and therefore how long Cas has to get out.

And he knows Cas is down there but he's being a dick about him right now. 

"I dragged your ass from hell and you shut me in it??"

-

WELP he threw it in. 

-

Ahahaa Cas finally managed to tackle Belf and punch him. Satisfying. 

(poor Belf)

-

CAS I THINK YOU SMITED HIM ALREADY

Oh god oh god that was awful. Belf is the worst.

(RIP Belf)

-

I don't want anyone to be mean to Cas for the rest of the season because he had to smite Jack's body right after Belf did that to him. And the dude's got more than enough trauma already. 

-

DID CAS NEARLY CRY?

LET CAS CRY ON SCREEN YOU MONSTERS

-

WAIT NO DON'T

-

He super-smited Belf until Jack's body was a complete crisp, but it stops anyone else ever using it for something like this ever again. 

-

Now he is just sitting here in Hell being sad and I don't like it.

Bobo in the heart-ripping business.

-

Uh Rowena

um

please don't??

-

OH NO. She already had this as a back up plan and she just didn't want to do it.

Was she already crying in the beginning because she knew this was coming?

Oh no oh no

-

Oh god. Does Sam even know what she's proposing???? He saw he pull out the resurrection sachet... 

-

Oh yeah the spell is literally death. She's describing Death, Sam. She's interpreting the act of dying as a spell. And in doing so, giving it unimaginable power. You know, if only you dare dream big enough.

She's gonna ask him to kill her to save the world and join the cool kids club of fully redeemed dead people who save the world D:

-

She's literally like, oh well, going to hell anyway, might as well take ALL YOU FUCKERS WITH ME

-

Bobo is murdering me. 

IT WAS HIM WHO MADE ME SHIP IT IN 10x19!!!! FUCK OFF!!!!

-

Cas is panting like he just ran up all the stairs.

Amazing. 

Feeling slightly robbed we didn't see his undignified scramble out of hell though.

-

I'd like to interpret Dean's look before then as concern about Cas even if he is pissed, because he's like, "CAS!" when he hears him come back with a definite note of relief there.

He'll deny it later, I'm sure :P

-

"You know what, screw the books." 

now kiss.jpg

-

"There has to be another way!" 

waaaaah.

-

"I don't care about ANYTHING enough to take my own life" omg she's like, begging him to kill her, she knows it's the right thing to do, she wants to do it, but she is basically saying she fears that at the moment it comes to it, she might be too cowardly to do it. And WANTING to do it is worth far more as a character mark, but she is scared that her true nature will come out in the moment and betray all her intent now. Asking Sam to do it fulfils what they know about her potential deaths, and puts the strength of the action in Sam's hands. Acknowledging her own cowardice and asking him to help her overcome it, together :( 

But like, playing it off as not believing enough in the cause and being more like it's just because Billie already implied it would happen one day or another, and oh she just so conveniently realises this is a way it could be done right now.

She wouldn't bring it up, if she didn't in some way think it should be done and she couldn't live with herself if she just pretended they were all out of options forever and let the horrible thing happen. 

Or, maybe not live with Sam.

Because it being a personal thing between them, rather than for the sake of the world. Yup.

-

AURGH she put her HAND on his SHOULDER AAAAURGH

-

KISS HIM YOU FOOL

-

So then she pulls the final card about would he do it to save Dean, if not everyone else. Would he pick Rowena over Dean? It would never happen :( 

-

Anyway back to Dean and Cas arguing. Leave off, you dick, he had to SMITE BELF.

-

Not that we're paralleling two non-canon couples together and all they've been through right in this moment or anything. The side by side of Dean metaphorically stabbing his relationship with Cas some more while Sam is being talked into doing it to Rowena for good, wholesome reasons.

-

Also this for Sam would be a huuuuuuuuuge fix it for season 4 - here they are in a mausoleum, and he's about to kill a scary lady and get her blood flowing.... to close Hell and put AWAY all the nasty things that come out of it. 

-

HUG AND STAB, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

he could have gone for a kiss!!!

-

And stabbing her in the stomach parallels Rowena as Ruby in a way, blurring lilith and ruby together as everything that Rowena COULD have been for Sam (she never did teach him magic although at the end she's acknowledged that he's the best she's got to a practicing witch). 

-

"Holy shit I just stabbed Rowena"

-

Can she kiss him NOW?

-

"That's ma boy" Oh NO

-

Come on, you have one last chance to spite Crowley forever by smooching his mum.

-

Sam just smiles like, I am ya boy.

-

Awww it's like a horrible baby she's making with him where he stabbed her in the tummy and he's filling it up with spirits now. 

-

Rowena's last look at Dean: "Fifth base, remember, boy ;)"

-

"Goodbye, boys."

Noooooo like mother like son.. .Come ooon. 

-

Honestly, if a character like Rowena was going to die, leaping into hell filled with the souls of the damned is exactly the ONLY way she ought to have gone.

-

I am distraught. 

-

But at least it was Bobo, who at times seemed like the only person on the show drinking Respect Rowena Juice. 

-

Omg we made it back to the Bunker. When was the last time we were even here. I've missed it D: 

-

Poor Sam, lamenting that his curse with women now doesn't even extend as far as banging them, he just has to get emotionally attached. 

-

Okay that was mean. But yeah, they've lost a LOT and they have had no time to reflect, even since Jack died, and barely since having to do Mary-related funeral stuff, because they went from that into dealing with Jack and all. This is the first time they're coming to the bunker and it's just empty except TFW expected home for tea, ever, for the first time in a long time.

-

Ooh is new hunter friendo called Stevie? 

Good. A name!

-

Aaaah Sam's sitting there with his socks off! D: How smol and vulnerable are they going to make him, shirt open, socks off... Like he was 90% of the way to going to bed and just froze :(

-

Oh and Dean piles on more death - yeah, not even weird allies we hated to be friends with made it. We're building our social circle back up from scratch! Hooray!

-

Oh, NOW Dean's trying to be positive?

Come on buddy, I give it 3 hours tops before Amara knocks on the door like, hey can I crash here? I need to hide from my stupid smelly brother. I'm not in any danger, he's just annoying.

-

Anyway one last verbal shoulder pat about Rowena. He didn't have a choice. 

Rats in a maze, but we beat it, amiright?

Dean loves getting to pretend to be the one who's chill and coping better than Sam. 

Dean, this downtime is when you're SUPPOSED to get sad and angry about stuff, not when you're yelling at Cas in the middle of ghosts flying everywhere. 

-

Thinking of which, he goes to get a drink and congratulate himself some more, but Cas comes up the stairs to ask him how Sam is, safe neutral territory to open the conversation on. 

-

They're standing with an entire table between them, possibly because it means they can compete to see who flips it first. 

Oh wait as I was typing, Dean said "you're sorry" all aggro so he's metaphorically already flipped it and I hadn't even prepared myself for when that would come because why would Dean be mean about Cas being SORRY ROWENA DIED

Are we back in 7x21 where Dean is pissed that Cas is just playing Sorry?

-

Ooh he's also blaming Cas for Rowena dying because why not, he doesn't know Belf wanted to be the new god and that Rowena then did the same thing with consuming all of the souls but only so she could throw herself into hell and DIE THERE HEROICALLY LIKE A BADASS. 

(better than wading into the public water resevoir and letting all the ghosts go into the pipes)

-

"Something went wrong, you know this. Something always goes wrong" whoops we're talking in metaphor again.

Yeah, Dean wanted Cas to just stand there while Belf became our sassy new God? Hm. Something tells me he'd have blamed Cas for not stopping him. 

-

"Yeah, and why does that something always seem to be you" Okay, we passed through metaphor in one line and right into punch in the face lines.

Thanks, Bobo, I say, clutching a bloody nose and with 3 front teeth missing

-

"You used to trust me" 

WAILS

-

Cas having to diagnose where it all went wrong and recapping how horribly Dean treated him? Ow.   
Also, I'm sure a portion of fandom went wild on Cas's behalf that omg he told Dean, as if this is literal years of abuse he's responding to and so on. Just making a nice clean line in the sand that the show only recently started setting THIS up, and previously it was villains telling Cas this to make him feel bad, and misinterpretations etc, on BOTH SIDES, which caused mutual struggles that in many cases Dean would have been horrified to know Cas was feeling, and would violently refute if he heard what villains said.

I mean. Yes, solid case he could have changed his behaviour in a lot of ways and been nicer to Cas in multiple moments in time if he KNEW what was going on with Cas's depression arc, had both sides of a misinterpretation or understood how villains talked to Cas. But hey, he didn't know, he couldn't change without a reasonable prompt, and Cas many times failed to communicate these issues to Dean and acted irrationally or seemingly irrationally as a result of them. Even this current argument has Cas seeming far more well-balanced and rational and to have always acted with honest best intentions, but because of a PATTERN of him sneaking off and doing shit (see: stealing the Colt, for example) when in a bad way, even though this final transgression against Dean was his easiest to explain and given to us hand-holding style that Cas has done nothing wrong through multiple episodes since he saw Jack turn Felix to dust, to Dean's eyes, and wounded heart, it's More Shit From Cas that fits this very long pattern of badly explained or justified things which hurt him or were poorly communicated for less understandable reasons. There were large chunks of the show where Dean's relationship to Cas was yelling "WHYYYY WHERE ARE YOUUU?" at the sky and feeling utterly jilted.

Which is WHY THIS IS NECESSARY TO FIX SHIT BETWEEN THEM. That they spell out all the reasons they are hurt and hurt each other, to know the pattern, to see what it does to them. 

But it's not Call Out Dean Day to say oh bobo wants us to think he's an abusive asshole towards Cas and Cas is a strong independant angel who don't need no human, because that's not the point. The point is the trust, cooperation and good communication that they're conveying they've lost from each other, and as a result it's aggravated every last scar in their relationship. 

If we're going to have a nice resolution for them, we need to tear this house they've built right down to the foundations and start again because they have these nearly insurmountable issues of trust and communication and that's what every time Cas has been seemingly kicked while he was down by a cold shoulder from Dean has been about, but this is the first season the show will be willing to not just pile on then put a plaster over the gaping wound, but to actually try and do a lasting repair. 

-

And I can say that with confidence because this is episode freakin 3

-

"I don't think there's anything left to say" Cas can you not read all that shit I just wrote? Honestly. You're as bad as Dean. 

(*sob*)

but yeah, space might do you both some good here D:

-

"Where are you going?" STAY HERE UNDER MY ROOF WHILE I'M MAD AT YOU SO I CAN PASSIVE AGGRESSIVELY MAKE YOU BREAKFAST TOMORROW

-

"You and Sam have each other" yeah, no punches pulled. Because. Last season. Time to come for the bibros where they live and give the very clear message that the isolationist concept of only Sam n Dean together doing cases and chilling and not needing Cas or anyone... awful. 

Cas walking out on Dean is the last thread needed to utterly isolate Sam and Dean - think 8x10 but a zillion times worse. I guess it's about to be BRUTAL for them.

-

(RIP Carver era, enjoy the mausoleum we built for your story)

-

"I think it's time for me to move on" 

Next time they meet him he has this Dean-alike hunter but 15 years younger hanging on his arm. And he's driving a sports car.

-

Fuck you dean, you deserve this lonely pan out. Sit there and stew in your grimdark batcave. 

*slam* 

-

I would have to say on balance, losing Rowena that way was sadder though. I feel way too vindictive on Cas's behalf to say that was actually SAD. Like it HURT like being stabbed every time either of them said a single word, but it was purposeful and thrilling to see them say all the stuff we've all been yelling at them to get out there so they can be happy. 

Just miserable for my girl Ro Ro. Bobo, Yockey or Meredith are literally the only ones I would have given a pass for that. Not even Dabb. 

Yockey would have made Sam and Rowena smooch.


	4. 15x04

15x04 watching notes

-

BECKY????

-

Oh lol they even have the line right before that in the recap about how Chuck's a fanboy too. 

-

Okay, so... I have no clue who is writing this, but we're clear Buckleming for a bit so I'll just take the dive and trust it :P

-

Omg Sam's season 7 sideburns. Thanks for the recap. 

-

Cutting from Chuck being like, Becky give us a moment, to: Amara, we belong together! really makes it look like he just ditched her for his sister

-

THEY SAID "NOW" FOR US? 

I feel somewhat violated as a SPN fan who's watched approximately 310 of those before in total chill peace and then someone says NOW over the NOW? It actually made me jump even though it was innocuous in itself just because having that Now narrated out loud is... invasive, almost. Wow.

-

I don't know what's going on here but it's both terrifying and awesome. 

-

I think the narration is continuing but it's being completely drowned out by the fight and music and I think that's intentional but for someone who loses dialogue into noise very easily this is my Worst Nightmare.

-

Ah, yep, it is still carrying on, good :D Absolutely adore this concept, carry on.

-

Were they worried the stunt guy wouldn't get in enough cool fights before the end, or is this an action reel Jensen's making so he can put it on his CV for his next job?

-

Lol what the fuck it's Benny. This is definitely AU fan fiction. The beard had me wondering but... 

OH. Beard = hiatus = filmed first... Director Ackles??? 

-

Oh come on, you're writing a fan fic and they don't even kiss? 

-

The other reason I think it's an AU is because Dean has that scarf around his neck which looks like AU Bobby's. 

I'm just not well-versed enough in action movies to know the trope or even modern american military culture... I have zero interest in glorifying war past or present and so I'm allergic to pretty much anything where this might be a trope from so I just do not have the cultural language to know why this is a thing. I have a vague feeling it's a desert warfare thing and these are scarves made in the middle east but it's a vaguest hunch and I can't get any deeper than this but I was wondering about it in the BAUbby costuming and now the scarf is back for Dean I'm like what modern desert warfare rambo trope IS this.

-

Or, wait... Sammy in the flash Cas saw in his Mark of Chuck where he was a demon was also red lit - is demon!Sam the bad guy in this nonsense? 

-

Sammy is definitely doing his 5x04 Lucifer voice here but honestly if he's just demon!Sam/demon blood Sam, is there really a difference between the two in what their core season 5 motivations were? Stull was blatantly a Sam vs Dean in the form of Michael and Lucifer argument, and the whole point was that Lucifer was wounded pride incarnate in a way Sam could be twisted to feel such as Ruby's entire manipulation in season 4. Demon!Sam could burn as cold as Lucifer did back in the original writing before Hallucifer came and ruined the character. 

(because: hey you had every opportunity to bring the real thing back and NOT write him like Hallucifer and ya didn't, joke's on you, show.)

Anyways. The contrast to demon!Dean, who burned hot but purposeless and nihilistic.

For Sam, though we're in Dean's POV and Dean's listing a whole bunch of atrocities, and that's good because it comes right after he stabbed Rowena to save the world, so it becomes a question once again of if he really would murder Dean to save the world. Or murder the world to save Dean. The parallel to 4x22 for Sam is really pushing at my mind from last episode and Rowena, and of course after killing Lilith his eyes were black for a moment. Chuck waved this all away. And maybe it's important to remember it was Chuck who did it.

-

My working theory right now is that Sam is getting a dream of Chuck's unfinished WIP through the Mark of Chuck and this is a dream he's having but it's like Pippin with the palantir, getting the little glimpse of Chuck's ideas for what to do next with his story if he's really going to fuck them over. Set a little ways in the future and he'll fudge in the timeline details later that get him there and powerful enough to pull this off :P 

-

Obviously Sam on a righteous demon blood murder rampage is a very important final character thing though in the same way obliterating the DeanCas relationship was, so I hope Sam's getting this. I hope he's learning from it. I'm already terrified of what the final test will be for them as characters before they're allowed to be free

-

(The other option is that Becky is now more powerful than Chuck, this is her fanfic, and in fact none of it is canon but with Chuck weakened, Becky is accidentally asserting her will on reality)

-

Aww the music covered the narration of Sammy murdering Dean. Shame. I love analysing Chuck's word choices and this has been a brutally simple step by step narration. 

...

a ... recipe for disaster B)

-

ALSO I mean come on here's a Worst Ending Of The Show that's being shown in episode 4, so no matter how fake it is it's also making it impossible to be the true ending to the show.

So another cross out of scenerios for doom and gloomsters who want the ending to hark back to all these old themes from seasons 1-5 and the brothers to have a tragic murder-suicide/murder-murder/suicide-murder/suicide-suicide ending.

-

AW SHIT SAM WOKE UP BUT THE NARRATION IS CONTINUING.

THAT'S THE REAL SCARY PART OF THIS.

-

SAM SAW THE DREAM BUT CAN HE HEAR THE NARRATION? 

-

DID CHUCK SAY "TITLE"???????????

-

Me: I'm upset about the scary narration haunting Sam  
Also Me: I'M GOING TO WALK TO LA AND YELL AT THE WRITER RESPONSIBLE FOR HAVING CHUCK MESS WITH THE TITLE CARDS LIKE THAT

-

Oh fuck off he's still doing it on the other side of the title card. I guess this is an episode where I feel tense, alarmed, and ready to flip tables about any and all metanarrative fuckery having a narration will cause in this 4th wall ravaged show. 

My girlfriend, asleep on the other side of the room, is an avid Chuck stan, 10 seasons behind on canon when it comes to continuous watching but heavily spoiled on the show, will absolutely go off on one at me if she knew I was sitting here twisting a lock of my hair and staring blankly at the screen because the very sound of Chuck's voice is making my heart spike in fight or flight mode, but meta.

-

Chuck, if you read out all the cast and directors and shit I will punch you because now you're messing with them being on a TV show and for the first time showing awareness that you know they're a TV show.

Which we knew in canon was something Chuck would have awareness of in an abstract way that he created all AUs, there's an AU where they're Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins (RIP), which means that conceptually the version where the show is just a show is something Chuck has played with already as a way of writing the story, and long abandoned that world as too boring. 

However, no one's ever looked into the screen and said, "hi viewers of the show we know you're watching" - the closest was Metatron in 9x18 and even he had in-world rationale for talking directly to us because the camera was from Cas's POV and ...

... 

  
....

okay so the only time the show has ever acknowledged it's a show and they're talking directly to us the viewer was after Sam and Dean drove off, having just run over a clown doll, which then randomly animated and winked at us at the end of 7x14, meaning the one and only time the show has interacted directly with us with no artifice of pretending the characters depicted on screen do NOT know they're in a television show with cameras pointing at them and that it will be recorded and sent to TV screens across America and the world, was, yes, the inexplicably alive Plucky doll. Who I now have to assume was Chuck.

He is now picking this up by reading off the screen the "NOW", "TITLE" and episode name not with the jokey use of "METATRON" in the title which did not have in-show rationale because he was only IMITATING God, so it was how the show should have been IF he was in charge as a meta artifice by the show to make us laugh... Now it's serious, Chuck is showing he's fully aware of the entire finished production of the show and its on-screen text and the scene changes etc, and as the literal omnipotent God, he's telling us that this is his vision of how the episode should go, and we're getting the words fresh from his mouth as he types or dictates or whatever to show either we're getting his vision as he wants, or to show his attempt to control the narrative and impose his stage directions on Sam and Dean - starting with the power play of reading the titles to place him in the layers of meta as OUTSIDE the fourth wall looking in. 

-

So I'm 5 minutes in and this is my favourite episode of the entire show just on a pure Lizzy bait way that this is the shit that appeals to me most. 

-

Like, did Chuck pick the recap and it was so rushed because he was just going "blah blah blah this happened"?

-

I am so glad he did not start reading off the actors :P 

-

it's veggie WHAT

-

The "MEATMAN"?

Is this Meredith? Was she the Meatblaster Pizza writer from last season?

-

IS CHUCK INFLUENCING DEAN TO EAT VEGGIE BACON OR IS HE JUST TRYING TO BE NICE TO SAM BY FINALLY MAKING VEGGIE BACON AND HAS NOW DISCOVERED IT IS TASTY AND TRYING NEW THINGS ISN'T BAD?

"Fuck you and your attempts to characterise me, Chuck, I will subvert all your expectations!"

Is this one of those things where Chuck writes "is eating bacon" and then Dean gets to dictate the terms, a complete flip of how in 4x18 Chuck got him with the veggie burger that wasn't?

Now chuck's like, "Veggie?? That wasn't in the story! Now Sam is REACTING to this! Stop talking about veggie bacon! Dean's supposed to be the MeatMan!"

-

Dean mimicking Sam as Sam repeats his oft-repeated lines and Dean talking under them like yep that's me, following the rote script.

How meta does this GET - it would only be weirder to have Chuck repeating them again in this context.

-

"You've got to stop calling yourself the MeatMan" I can't believe Sam is finally pulling an intervention on the MeatMan. Let the MeatMan call himself the MeatMan if he wants to.

Sam knows.

"It doesn't mean what you think it means"

GOOD GRIEF MEREDITH/YOCKEY/PEREZ/WHOEVER WROTE THIS. 

(This has Meredith vibes all over it, I'll be amazed if it isn't her - her first episode had Sam calling out Dean's sublimination of his issues) 

Sam knows that it sounds super gay and like Dean is going out eating meat every night and loving it, and it makes him kinda laugh at Dean but also kinda uncomfortable just to always have that mental image of Dean loving dick every time Dean says it, you know, because it's his brother. 

Dean scoffs off the suggestion there's a double meaning to something he's been proudly putting in his bio and wondering why he gets the comments he does on the dating apps. Chuck tells us that Dean scoffed. And looked a bit uneasy. Because now he's doubting how his macho presentation has been coming across and we're so far from veggie bacon now. We're deep into the story of Dean's presentation of himself and his sexuality and gender. How he tries to be as macho as possible and yet in doing so, labelling himself the meatman like in 8x14 the guy who knows how to handle a grill and the flirting with a sexy lady that earned him, but in the end the name just sounds... gay. So far through the macho layer that it goes from Huurrr manly man I love masculinity to hurrr manly men I *love* masculinity. 

-

And then his protest to Sam's sympathetic look, like, so sorry to break the news to you, and Dean's like, Yeah it does. Asserting HIS version of reality over any possible crack in his facade. If he just SAYS it does it does and other people can't go around interpreting me wrong if I just keep SAYING that things are as they are on the surface and this subtext doesn't haunt my very step.

-

Of course, this happening right after he's had Cas break up with him.

-

"Anyway it's not that bad give it a shot," Dean pushes back to the veggie bacon, but it's now LADEN with the depth of the previous comments, that he's trying something new, something beyond his macho meat man image, the way he'd always insisted he was this straight macho dudebro and meat was his brand... now he's actually tried the healthier option and discovered it's not so bad after all. 

-

Guess Sam is just not hungry after his horrible dream or he'd be all over this as a bonding moment :P 

-

"They look at each other intently, then Sam looks away" so far so good with Chuck's narrative being accurate, and them not subverting what he's saying, so they're very much spiders caught in the web right now. I guess for the first scene of this we're going to see Chuck deeply in control. If they get a chance to escape it, it will be later.

-

Dean's got a cattle mutilations case, which does include a cheerleader picture.

... 

... 

If we get the fucking cheerleaders and ghouls episode Gadreel made up for Sam in 9x10 while in his head, I am going to flip a table. Chuck is NOT ALLOWED to do that.

-

As they get into it, Dean pours himself another cup of coffee unnarrated by Chuck, but narrated by me narrating where the narration is.

-

"He gives Sam a hard pat on the shoulder and walks out"

D-did Chuck just make Dean smack Sam on his injured shoulder just to spite him? You're only spiting yourself if you share pain through the Mark of Chuck, buddy.

-

Ahahaha oh my god it was real bacon after all, Dean's messing with expectations by lying about veggie bacon to trick Sam into trying it. Because he pranks Sam when they're all alone and he wants to bond with him and they're struggling so he tries to make him laugh... or make himself laugh at Sam which later turns into Sam reluctantly laughing at himself, but distracted from his woes at least. 

Which means there was a whole set piece about how Dean calls himself the Meatman, STILL EMBRACES THAT TITLE, and never backed off from it to start trying veggie bacon... But honestly if the overall message is that he loves being the Meatman and he refuses to take criticism on that, well, more power to him. 

I mean I still think he should try eating healthier but he loves the concept of dying of natural causes and embraces the unhealthy diet as speeding him towards bowing out of the story on his terms. Food is the only thing he can control sometimes. 

-

Sam spitting out the bacon makes me think he's gone almost completely vegetarian except I guess rare cases of WELL MADE homecooked food like Dean's burgers or Jody's roast. Just, sworn off road food. Making what HE wants to eat in the Bunker and refusing to eat Dean's food altogether.

HEALTHY BOUNDARIES?

-

... Meatman. Honestly. 

So the set up which Dean and Chuck were in on at different levels was a game played at Sam's expense to make him eat the bacon and which for us the viewer told us something about Dean's eating habits, but really in the negative as he refuses to back down and eat the healthy food, but uses the potential he might have tried it and reformed on making fun of it and asserting his personality through the meatman image as a way to trick Sam into thinking he had character development. 

But in actual fact his regressive behaviour caused him to fall out with Cas on an epic scale.

Does Sam know Dean fell out with Cas - he knows they were pissy but does he know his brother-in-law and co-father of their son has left Sam and Dean to themselves and Dean's caused a horrible social rift in their family right when they lost EVERYONE ELSE? 

... And yet at the end of the day Dean's refusing to see his own behaviour causes people to think of him in a gay context, as he embraces the Meatman label but denies its innuendo, even as he's such a master of spotting it himself. Or has a huge break up with Cas and we all have to pretend they don't have the most intense relationship ever.

-

Ah, Davy Perez. Okay! Which also explains why it had a Glynn setup but then a huge subversion into nonsense after because Davy always writes his little character setpieces as a subversion of expectations not a psychological mauling... Gosh, interesting to try analysing an episode from the POV of if it was one writer not another :P The newbies do have fingerprints and wondering if Meredith was genuinely poking a hole in Dean's shell made me do a huge double take when it turned out to be the jokey shaking up that Davy does.

Okay, the meta levels of this episode are going to be very fun from someone who brought us Stuck in the Middle (With You)

-

Sam conducts the interview and is brought to a halt by the arrival of Helicopter Parents upset that their Billy isn't going to get to do his lacrosse game and get scouted. Sam's expectations that Billy plays football because he's a boy are wrecked because lacrosse is stereotypically a woman's game, and he's corrected. Then they say it'd be the end of the world to Sam Fucking Winchester's face, and he becomes That Hipster who has a vintage collection of apocalypses at home who just can't let you go without telling you about them.

-

Took a lil break to go for a walk and came back to the deadpan narration and very nearly did flip the table in horror. This is the most upsetting thing to ever happen because this can be the most boring case and Chuck looking in on them announcing everything for the whole episode would still be the most creepy, claustrophobic thing ever.

Such a good use of the premise that Chuck's the big bad. It's like the little bits of narration in 4x18 used jokingly but now so deadly serious. And the sense that he can write whatever he wants and fuck with them. The fact that if he's narrating he's writing and if he's writing he's in control.

-

Vampires, woo! 

Or, well, A Vampire Fang, which SPN has trained me to think is either A: open and shut vampire case while Main Plot Nonsense happens and the monsters are like 3% of the episode, or, B: Absolutely not a vampire and the entire episode is about how it is not how it seems.

-

Chuck picks his next victim to be eaten by vampires, since he's narrating this. See previous comment about how he has the highest kill count on the show if you look at it this way where he's responsible for all plot-related deaths.

-

Was the implication over the phone that the victim had a girlfriend who is distraught about her death? Well the Betty From Riverdale alike is immediately attacked so I guess that's her punishment for not caring about the gays?

-

*mumbled narration over the driving montage* Still creepy. Chuck moving his pieces around the chess board.

-

No blood... Oh dear, they just expect to see blood everywhere, which is also grim commentary on the Winchesters and their day to day. 

But yeah, expectations are not met. They can interpret that the story is not what it looks on the surface, based on what they would have expected going in and then what they see when they actually get there - they adapt their worldview and come up with a new theory.

Then Dean gets all sad and judgy about how the police don't know what they're dealing with and are in over their head, while Sam is like, no, that's OUR job. The police can't be expected to handle this, it takes them knowing that something might have the motive of being a monster that eats people because it's hungry and not being a wild animal with no motive, or a human killer doing it for whatever twisted but still ultimately human reasons they would be a serial killer. 

(I mean unless it IS a serial killer :P)

But then that gets Sam monologuing about the truth and whether idk the police would do better if they all just knew people could be vampires. 

(In America especially with its police shootings problem, I'm certain that won't cause any problems with extrajudicial killings if you're like, hey, so there's a whole population of monsters that you can just say were trying to eat people and then kill 'em)

-

Chuck didn't narrate the woman jogging by with a pushchair as Sam was talking about the white picket fence, a bit of visual subtext for the sort of thing that he is bitter about that there's normal people out here living their chill lives. But he DOES narrate that Dean pulls out a flask, drawing our attention to Dean's issues at the expense of examining what Sam is saying about his conflict of living in this secret life and the burden of having to do ALL the clean up themselves.

Interesting writing priorities: the show itself is still talking to us with subtext for both of them, but Chuck chooses to pick out Dean is in the drinking on the job mood, without waxing poetic on Sam's mood.

-

Wow, Sam is really still upset about those parents using "end of the world" as a metaphor for their kid not getting into Yale. 

Aside from anything else, a good example of how everyone has their own triggers.

-

SUBURBAN MOM BECKY.

-

Okay Chuck writing about her is even more creepy in this context, like, he has all the previous episodes happen to him, and the first thing he does when Amara's stormed out on him is to sit down and contrive a way to check in on his ex, and perv on her life. Probably manifest whatever reason her husband and kids just left for their fishing trip leaving her behind for the weekend... Wow.

-

Creep.

-

EW NOW HE'S NARRATING HIMSELF INSERTING HIMSELF BACK INTO HER LIFE. WHAT PATHETIC asdsdfksyhdkfjhsddfs AURGH gross. She's waving them off as he narrates but then says he's WAVING BACK like he's answered her wave to her HUSBAND AND KIDS as if it was all about HIM 

Ew ew ew 

-

yeah, I would run the heck away if I was Becky

-

Is Becky like... growing corn in her garden... is she farming her little space of land. Is she the happy ending version of Cain who was given a mark which among other things meant that he could not grow crops ever and so he had to go into town and buy his corn and then angrily shuck it while Dean killed demons on his dining table?

(side note: the curse was VERY specific and baffled biblical scholars unless they knew about events of season 9)

-

Chuck has put himself in the most harmless goober clothes he could think of, with a cardigan and all. He wants to look inoffensive even while pulling this Gross Ex Shit.

-

"It's been a rough couple of weeks" "That's not my problem" YOU TELL HIM 

And just like that I am rooting for Becky 100%

I like suburban mom Becky

-

OMG WAIT Becky has always had this wild crush on Sam and then also dated Chuck... Does Chuck harbour animosity towards Sam also for the Becky thing that isn't even his fault that she married him later??? 

I completely forgot to see this as a love triangle but from Chuck's POV Sam married his ex, who was always more into Sam than him anyway.

Super tragic story from his POV... Wait, I think I hear...

it's the smallest violin.

-

Anyway back on the case, we get to the cheerleader thing. Which Dean specifically comments on in a semi-gross way - calling out the monster's fetish rather than perving himself, but still linking cheerleading to being inherently sexual. 

"Dean and Sam share an uneasy look" I think that was more remonstrating/"hey, what?!" looks rather than them having an uneasy feeling about the whole cheerleader hunting monster.

-

Are Sam and Dean coincidentally in the same town as in, Chuck's manipulated them to being in the same place as Becky the same time he decides to reach out to her, or has he put them here on a vampire cheerleader case, Gadreel style, to keep them out of the way?

-

Omg Becky's SPN diorama! I love it :D

-

I bet her kids aren't allowed to play with it. Modern, cool nerdy equivalent of daddy's trainset tropes.

I say modern, I swear one of my friends was lamenting he wanted a trainset room.

-

SHE'S A SUCCESSFUL ETSY MERCH SELLER. SHE IS ALL THE COOLEST PEOPLE IN FANDOM NOW.

-

Since the writers actually interact with our badass con vendors, this BETTER be loving or they get stabbed with a custom forged IRL angel blade :P 

-

"MY WORK" omg I love it. I was only joking earlier but now she's literally telling Chuck to his face that she, the fan, has taken possession of his story, and she is THRIVING. He gets all excited for a moment that she's still a fan and obsessed with him, which for Chuck as Chuck, not as the unknowable God creator whatever, is the closest form of worship he can get because it's specifically acknowledging his role in shaping the narrative and the main characters he has chosen for the petri dish.

And then in a simple shut down she's like, nah, you started this but fuck you I have been writing fan fic, grown up to dominate this fandom with my work moderating and curating, and now I am making money from creative artistic endeavour based off it. She built the foundations of why anyone would still care about the SPN books, what people interact with. She is basically the Pope of Chuck's work but in that role she can now control the experience as the earthly representative a heck of a lot better than the absent father god/writer.

Acknowledging that the fan experience IS where the story lives, and after all CREATIVE ENDEAVOURS ARE MADE FOR OTHERS TO ENJOY and nowhere would that be more clear in MASS MEDIA FANDOM where there's rarely snobbery about like... literary value... in the way that they want to make things broadly appeal to demographics and obsessively track who is watching and try and shape content to those demos. 

(And then like SPN is doing shit like this because it's 1000 years old and no one is actually watching it from the higher ups and the writers have been in "fuck it" creative free-fall since like season 4.)

Anyway there's still the acknowledgement that the show is supposed to be FOR US and Chuck right now is literally getting stunned by the concept people are going to take his work and actually want to deviate from his beloved perfect canon and shape it into what's good for them. 

-

Becky goes on to dismiss entirely that Chuck did ANY creating because not knowing he's God, she's like, oh, you were just writing down what really happened, and meanwhile I have been doing like... actual artistic shit, while you were just repeating what happened.

Remember in that awesome Dr Who episode where they're trapped on the bus with the monster and it's repeating what they say and then suddenly it's the one doing the speaking and it's trapped the Doctor's voice and is now making him repeat what it says? Becky just did that with Chuck's work. She's seen that he was just repeating what was happening, as a prophet, and so she's gone on to become the creator instead - and in the narrative you could say Chuck is narrating things to make them happen... or he's just repeating what is happening on screen, things his creations are doing independently of him. And now he's trapped in this place where is he just writing the words of what is happening whether he is willing it or not? 

Can we trap him in a box where he's just writing his own downfall, Metatron style?

-

I WANT HER MINI BOBBY'S YARD

SEND ME THE LINK TO HER ETSY

-

And she's now able to see how being exposed to the "it's all true!" thing sent her to the dark place where she forced Sam to marry her, and that has given her real self-reflection and given her a much more well-adjusted way of handling the existence of the supernatural. And giving us the viewer this way to look at her sympathetically now as seeing how she did go off the deep end as a result of being a regular old fan who was thrown into having her whole Thing turn out to be real and there just being no way to rein in the sort of excitement and exploration in that space for her before she made a real mistake and overstepped the line. Chuck picked a terrible person as his messenger in 5x01 in the sense that he went for a low hanging fruit of a True Believer but didn't think about finding someone who could HANDLE knowing about it all.

"You should have seen Luke," Cas grumbled back in 4x18, and just last episode we saw Kevin again, poor kid whose life was ruined by being randomly picked as a prophet aged 17.

Chuck has a habit of DESTROYING people who he picks on and the fact that the most picked on characters are his favourites, Sam and Dean, speaks volumes.

I mean Metatron even, got picked out of the secretary pool by him, and immediately had HIS life ruined. 

He gave Lucifer the Mark because he was a favourite trusted son, and then gave Michael as the next most trusted favourite son the orders to handle that situation caused by aforementioned favourite son, and then Michael got ruined too...

not to mention what happened to Adam who was also essentially randomly picked on as a separate incident to Sam and Dean being picked on, YIKES.

-

Reframing Becky back to 5x01 and Chuck telling her it was all real, as an act of destruction towards her that she's now had to recover from, is revolutionary holy fuck.

-

"I realised I wasn't in love with the real Sam Winchester" Yeah no shit.

And so she started writing her own, and compartmentalised Sam BACK to being a fictional character, back to being the creation she fell in love with based off the words, which did NOT depict Sam accurately in the first place, and also her own imagination was allowed to take cues to go wherever it wanted from there anyway. Like how her image of Dean was SO wrong that the real thing was just not how she imagined at all and killed dead her Wincest vibes because she had been reading him so wrong that she couldn't make the real thing fit even a first impression box. 

She maybe had one of those very exaggerated fandom top/bottom dynamic images of him one way or the other, either the Fabio from the cover or a very very twinky Dean. Either one is an exaggeration - see also: MeatMan conversation.

-

"They could just sit around and do laundry and talk, you know!" 

I really regret not writing on the bit where Chuck was accosting Becky on the porch that Davy gives me like, feral Robbie vibes. Like Robbie but 10x more spooky and wild in his approach :P 

Because obviously that's a reference not just to 4x18 which is one of the only times we've seen them in a laundromat, but Robbie's conceptual laundromat episode where Sam and Dean spend the whole time chillin. The fan fic Robbie wanted to write is going into Becky's version of Supernatural. The softer version where they don't have to hunt monsters all the time, but she can explore the inner lives of the guys SHE fell in love with, not the REAL ones who can be disappointing and unpredictable and not fall into the tropes she expects of them. 

And the fact that that reference is to something only hardcore nerds of the show's behind the scenes who've heard the lament for a laundromat episode will get, but it's not a douchey sort of behind the scenes reference because it's still presented soundly to the general audience as a nice concept - maybe just the first time they've heard of it, while I, a nerd, squeaked happily.

-

"That's what people like the most anyway"

hahaha, yeah, the acknowledgement that the show has to keep the characters running on the hamster wheel, but the fans always want it to go slower, for them to spend time developing their relationships and showing us how their everyday lives look. To explore the space as if they're real people. 

I mean one of the things about SPN's worldbuilding I just love is that it's a step off of real, that they're interacting in our spaces, for American audiences they might be driving through your town any day of the week. But they're still living off the grid and romantically roadtripping and NOW we also have the Bunker so there's even more questions about the most mundane aspects of their lives. Something about the closeness of it all that you could just pack the car with guns and go hunt monsters and fall off the map like Sam did from Stamford to hunter overnight, has that great romantic appeal, and that gives it a real kind of easy to fantasise about quality. The show itself has done this in some ways with Jack, like, how would these 3 horrible battle hardened men even go about raising a son if we wanted to give them one, right? But that had to be on an epic plot level. Something like the life in 6x02 with an actual baby and still on a case while having to do childcare is not sustainable for more than half an episode in the real show but the domesticity of it is an absolute trope goldmine for the creative imagination if you were into the concept of Sam n Dean having a baby, for example. 

-

Chuck really wants to defend the monsters, because he's made this whole creation with multiple levels of horrible monsters to challenge everyone living in it, and meanwhile Becky's just, eh. 

-

See also: currently some sort of vampire cheerleader case going on in the other part of the story but this is obviously by far the more interesting thing going on and it's just 2 characters talking about their experience. And meanwhile the only reason the potential vampire case is interesting is because Chuck's simultaneously narrating it.

-

He's definitely backed off the narration here, like Becky is making him super uncomfortable so he doesn't know how to describe her demonstrating the miniatures to him or shrugging off his defence of monsters. 

-

"Three AU fic deadlines breathing down my neck" first of all they just called out most of the fandom in one fell swoop, second of all, this is definitely definitely some sort of inside job now, that not even comfortable observeration from cons and such won't get this level of detail. 

-

Chuck, shut up about the leviathan oh my god. I find them hilarious and love them as much as you do but you have to let this go. There's more to the story than leviathan.

Oh god, is he going to unleash a ton of leviathan just to prove they're cool?

-

"He points to a pair of Sam and Dean bobblehead dolls" oh but Cas is there too. And he's standing in the door of the Roadhouse and I DIIIIE

-

Chuck realising he's scraping the barrel when his options of friends are Amara and then Becky, and suddenly realising how alone he is in the universe hahahah

-

"My number one fan" she is NOT. She is Supernatural's no.1 fan, and there is a difference. 

The Author Is Dead, long live the fangirl.

-

So much euphemism about her saying he wants her to "fluff" him and get a "crank on the big old ego" 

Good for her seeing right through him :D

-

SHE HAS PE TEACHER DEAN PLUSHIE

-

"For the first time in a long time, I like myself," she says, with a Castiel plushie sitting on her shoulder in the background. 

Oh boy, now I'm having serious Becky FEELS 

ooow

-

Anyway, Chuck realising she's got self esteem and doesn't need to worship him is cruuuushing 

Look at him being so pathetic. Who's the pathetic one seeking validation now, huh? HUH??

-

.... er wait he's still the big bad. I am now worried about Becky. 

-

"I kind of hate me right now"

"She nods and then shows some concern."

Becky twitches her nose like, oh god, I have to deal with this to get him out of my house, don't I? "Really?" she asks, with maybe 5% concern, 30% deadpan snark, and a lot of oooookay let's just get this over with.

Chuck is so deep in his wallowing he can't interpret her in any way but that tiny sliver of concern she offers him, as the main story about how Becky is feeling.

-

She sighs, gives in to trying to help him, and switches to counsellor mode, using, I suppose, what worked on her to try and buck him up so he'll leave.

-

Becky tells him to write, when he decides that writing is what makes him happy. He says writing first, then adds "creating" but there's a very obvious difference from writing for yourself to make yourself happy, and writing to "create" which in Chuck's terms is manipulating everyone.

-

And so we cut back to Dean interrogating the mascot, back to the stuff Chuck is narrating as the episode he's decided to write to come out of retirement from the series. 

The gap between season 5 and season 15 is going to take some explaining but we'll figure it out :P 

-

Idk if these are playing concurrently or Chuck retroactively started writing, or what. He's God, he can be everywhere at once and start writing a story about what happened a few days ago to catch up to present... even if it means he's repeating what's happened, not exerting his will?

Hm maybe the chronology distinction is important?

-

"Now the beaver scoots off as Sam approaches"

What a line.

-

Dean bonded with Tony the mascot. What a goober. He saw a beaver on a scooter and he was like, I have GOT to know that guy's story. 

"he knows a LOT about cheerleaders. In a mostly non-creepy kinda way."

-

Mostly?

-

Anyway, once again just one of those little examples of Sam thinking Dean's being ridiculous and goofing off, but Dean's spotted a very smart way to get information on the case, so acting chill eating a hot dog and being the cool fed the guy would want to talk to, he's got Tony's life story and a break in the case.

-

Seriously though, IS the school a send up of Riverdale?

-

Aww Billie the Lacrosse boy, getting yelled at by his mom for talking to a girl and being dragged off. 

-

I am a little suspicious of this Veronica person anyway whether they're from Riverdale or not, because she's rehearsing her sad speech about Susie and trying to hit the right emotional notes, adding in the right words to convey that no, this wasn't just her friend, it was her BEST friend, etc.

I would have to assume that there's something to say about the fact she's rehearsing her words, honing her image, and finding the phrases she wants. 

"In a way she's still part of me" this is something people say when they've eaten someone else's heart.

-

Yeah Dean's slow-clapping her... I mean we know they're after the next in line to the cheerleading crown, and MAYBE she's innocent but also this is mostly not an episode about this case but about Chuck and Becky and so I don't know if Chuck needs more content on this episode than something this open and shut :P 

If nothing else they wouldn't have Dean mocking the words of an innocent girl if she really was sad.

She was not coming across as sad so I'm not too worried he's about to get dragged for being mean to a grieving cheerleader :P

-

Dean is the asshole who shows up and critiques your writing and gives you sarcastic comments about how you really tried to squeeze the emotion out... Aka all the times he's had a go at Chuck for his writing or God for his Creation.

-

She can't be a vampire, she has a retainer. 

How do the fangs come down if you have a retainer.

-

Wait I was being sarcastic, did Sam really then spot them and start to question the same thing as me?

-

Sam literally called off the vampire hunt because she had braces and he says it makes it impossible to fang out.

What IS this, Chuck?

-

Ah. Billie's mom has history, with Susie or probably her mom at school. Poor Billie. Romeo and Juliet but cheerleader and lacrosse player. No one has that violent a reaction to their son talking to a specific girl unless they have something REALLY petty against them. :P 

-

"Really? I need WINE"

Hahahahah suburban winemom. 

Is this Chuck's depiction of Becky, trying to cast suburban moms as the Worst instead of how she's actually really happy where she is?

-

AHAHAH "Mr Whitman continues to wash a significant amount of blood from his hands" 

So the helicopter parents are literally vampires trying to ensure their son has the best shot at schools even if they have to murder their way to it, and poor Edward Cullen there is helpless in it all.

-

Ah, Chuck's narrative did get ahead of the action there for a second, telling us we'd see a girl tied up and blindfolded before the camera reached her. 

-

Aha! Chuck can't see them any more! Well, that's interesting. So what exactly is this story being told in the narrative then if he can't see them? Is that him writing something to FORCE them into a series of actions so he CAN find them? Like a very complex trap where they can't know he's doing it so it has to be a regular case and not a weird Chuck thing or they'd immediately start suspecting it? 

I can't believe this is literally Gadreel's story to keep Sam content. WHAT A HACK. 

YOU ARE A PLAGIARIST, CHUCK. 

-

Anyway he rubs his shoulder as he admits he's ~lost his prophet powers~ to remind us that he's still got his Mark of Sammy to match the Mark of Chuck that Sam has. That this is what has caused his disconnection from the narrative. 

-

"Then write about something else!"

"but this is it! this is my favourite story!"

me protesting I have writer's block to a friend when I am literally surrounded by stacks of notebooks with words from many stories I have not typed up. But I wanna write THIS ONE THAT I'M STUCK ON

... as a metaphor for writer's block, having your own character shoot you because they don't like where the story is going and they think you've been mean to them, and then you get helplessly disconnected from the whole thing, is quite painfully apt

-

I love that they've been having this conversation over a chessboard. With all the pieces currently in place, waiting to start. I've been trying to figure out what the pieces were before I mentioned it but at this point we get a shot of them standing either side of it in the foreground so I can't go without mentioning it again, as Becky deftly maneuvers Chuck through his writer's block, trying to convince him to try original fiction with his beloved faves.

Who knows, she might accidentally be the worst thing to happen to the Winchesters again if her pep talk so she can fill her etsy orders and take a bath with candles and wine and fall asleep in it... ends up giving Chuck the inspiration to do a Metatron and start writing new stuff for himself, leading him to exercise imagination and direct control on the story in a very different way than he's done before - whatever it was before, this narration layered over the whole case is absolutely terrifying in how he seems to have the whole episode clenched in his fist. 

-

"Where'd you learn all this?" "I'm a writer too, Chuck" 

Oh my god, MEN in charge of creative industries not even REALISING FAN WRITERS legally count as WRITERS TOO.

"Writing's writing!!!" 

Yeah, get THAT on a novelty fan t-shirt!

-

Omg I want the meta writer novelty t-shirt range, just SPN iconography around phrases like "writing's hard!" and stuff. 

-

"She fixes him with a meaningful stare" 

Guess you could have 2 meanings of "fixes" there because he feels like her advice is finally sinking in and she's helped him.

-

Oh my god he's literally taken over her laptop and is composing onto her blog. 

Chuck, you're the worst.

-

His narration says what he's writing but fades into Sam and Dean in the office looking at the security footage, narrating them doing THAT. 

(Side note: has NO ONE CHECKED the footage before them?? Come on!)

I assume he didn't start his story there but it's almost like in media res but with us getting the story up to that point and this is what they're doing around the time he starts typing but he's catching up to them?

-

And back over to the Whitmans, where Billy is upset his parents are guilting him over the sacrifices they made for him and he's like I never asked you, and they're like, we're PARENTS... Aka the usual sort of back and forth about parenting and all the turmoil of that in a stereotypical argument as a child comes of age and starts making decisions for themselves, but with the dark side that they're killing people so he gets his scholarship.

-

I suppose, again, Jack is presenting as SOMEWHERE around this age or a bit older - he seems more teenage than "22" like he claimed in a pinch, and they suggested he reads as about 18 to them in the hospital scene where they had to give name and age.

Anyway, though we're way more on Billy's side in this scene, it's interesting to see parenting around this sort of transitional age explored again. Perhaps maybe more for Jack so when we get to see poor nougat baby again there's at least a reference point for overbearing parents choosing his life path for him to think about. He had such a horrible end because they chose not to let him die what would have been his tragic but natural end, after all. Can't make a bigger life choice for a kid than that! And I assume they'd do it again if they had a shot. 

But this is a dark mirror anyway and Jack's not here yet in the story, so there's not much to do with this except maybe remember it later.

-

Uhoh, as the Winchesters come in, the narration is getting ahead of the action again, with a warning that Mr Whitman was going to walk towards them before it happened. The fact SPN is written in present tense makes it very specifically centered in time, so of course any deviations from that are pretty obvious, as he's still sitting on screen when he "walks towards them".

-

I still can't believe the braces thing was an actual plot thing.

-

Guess she was just a callous social climber, but opportunistic rather than manipulative

-

Anyway the dad knows these are hunters, and he sends Billy away so he won't have the family secret revealed to him.

-

Wait... Did they play lacrosse in Twilight? I know they were obsessed with baseball, but was lacrosse actually a thing in that or am I giving myself false memories because it would be hilarious?

-

Chuck describes the noise from downstairs and Sam glances down but did he catch a whiff of the narration tipping him off or was it JUST the sound?

-

Oh wait is the dad actually just a dad and the mom is the vampire? That would be one last twist for this story.

-

Obviously she knocked over stuff onto the girl because the broom has fallen ONTO her not away from her.

-

He put his machete down. Basic error. 

-

Mom has a gun. Yikes.

-

I mean is she even a vampire or does she JUST have a gun.

-

The real monster: american gun owners who are too quick to pull them in regular family dramas (like kidnapped cheerleaders in the garage) 

-

So I went and watched Finding Llewyn Davis between then and now (by utter coincidence to its relevance to watching this episode right now), and let me just say [SPOILERS], WOW, the choice of Chuck using that song is so much deeper now to me as people said at the time but like, I put the film on my List and then promptly did not watch it. But here I am now, just staggered at the choice to reference that shaggy dog story where Llewyn blunders around as a homeless asshole winding up his entire support network, being an absent terrible father to some kid out there he didn't even know existed, living this dreadful asshole life. But then also can just bust out the most beautiful songs you ever heard, and of course has his tragic sadboy backstory to explain WHY he's in such a horrible place at the time of the film. Dink's Song at the end is used to remind us just how amazing he is at singing and to give us some hope for his career maybe, but then the film ends with him being beaten up, which we saw at the opening too, and it was payback just for him being a dick the night before. There's not a real narrative per se, but the cat (one of the cats) was called Ulysses so.

Chuck sings himself out with the same song that really winds your heart up because you CARE about Llewyn despite everything because he's talented and tragic and the film's been following him the whole way. That whole thing about because he's the one on screen having relatable shitty moments non-stop we end up sympathising, even when he makes all the wrong choices along the way. It's definitely one of those self-reflective films that makes YOU feel like you ought to make better decisions... Just seeing how everything he does comes back to kick him in the teeth but it's kinda his fault. 

Chuck in season 11 definitely came across like he was just an asshole who had made poor decisions that kick him in the teeth but hey he's GOD, right? he made this whole amazing creation, he can sing like heck, maybe he's a terrible father but we give him a pass in the sense that he's still "super cute" and he's been kinda metaphorically going around sleeping on everyone's sofas just like Llewyn does. And in this episode it has the same vibe that he's gone from Amara's sofa to Becky's, because Llewyn also goes to visit his sister a couple of times, on his disaster tour. Bouncing from sisters to exes, who are flourishing without him or at least living competent lives where they're handling shit and he's not. 

Of course the twist at the end would be that Llewyn had been going around manipulating everyone for his own amusement to write his songs about them or something because he needed to piss everyone off and live the tragic couch surfing musician life just as a sort of hipster slumming it adventure to get inspiration. Which is the difference that Llewyn is genuine. Chuck just magically gave himself incredible guitar skills because he wanted to be able to play well, and he's never suffered for his art. He's been laughing the whole time, mocking everyone on a level beyond their comprehension. So the comparison ends in 14x20, and we move to this whole new thing. But it's still fascinating to me that this is the movie reference that Chuck went with when he decided to do a farewell song like that. 

-

Incidentally just because of the curly hair and beard, there's a moment just for a second where Oscar Isaac looks passably like Chuck when he's backlit in silhouette during that song, and I wigged out because I had just wandered over from this episode so in the back of my mind Chuck was still in control of the story in a way and that was fun :P 

-

Anyway back to the episode.

Oh, yeah, the dad had no idea how bad it was? He just instinctively knew this was bad and sent his boy upstairs to avoid the conflict?

"My wife has probably done something awful, SIGH"

-

Now he's trying to pretend he's the bad guy, but Chuck's "she gives him a confused look" betrays double than just the on-screen visual that he's bluffing to take the fall and let her escape with their son.

-

"She removes her glasses and looks up at him" this one is not layered over the action at all, that's anticipatory to the extreme as he nervously paces waiting to see what she thinks of his new story.

I hope he saved to drafts already because writing blog posts is not a very stable way of keeping your writing safe.

-

The lil Sam and Dean beside her laptop! Which has an impala on it! I say happily as someone who has had funkos live on my desk and still has like 5+ SPN stickers on my laptop

-

He's probably written something different on her laptop than the narration we're getting in the episode, because she wouldn't be so enthusiastic if he'd written this whole creepy mess in but he sure is narrating it.

-

And now she's trying to get rid of him again, like, oh wow you inspired me! anyway go away so I can write 

-

#relatable

-

I do like how Chuck is looking to Becky for notes now, like, giving her the Metatron exalted position that angels would literally kill for. Hey, you're my new editor, divinely picked!

(If ONLY as a writer you could just rock up to a random editor, type out a novel in a day, and get their feedback)

I mean he sucks, and he's doing that insecure thing where with Metatron at least he could go wrathful in seconds if he was too honest with Chuck so I'm a lil scared for her, and also we don't WANT her to help him become a badass writer again if this is just powering him up to wreak havoc on our boys.

-

Oh NO she's like, nah, the villains don't work for me. This is too low stakes.

Becky. This is how you get Sam shot again.

-

"No one even mentions Cas!"

GOOD GIRL.

-

Now he times his "she looks up and sees Chuck scowling down at her" with chilling accuracy to make us have a full-body skin crawl. 

Yeeeah, sorry, don't critique the shitty vampire case, this is...

Gyah.

RIP the Winchesters :P

-

She's basically told the big bad that she thinks he isn't forcing his characters through enough drama and so now he's basically getting into a dark place where, you want jeopardy? I'll give you it! Raawr smash!

Way to make the villain turn of the season which may unleash the next round awfulness come from a critique that the drama had died down and the stakes didn't seem to be there. Because in the meta way from our POV as viewers, obviously Sam and Dean are hoping Chuck's fucked off, they beat the ghostpocalypse in 3 episodes... they can chill, right? Figure out what to do with their lives on the other side of this? So in the narrative of the season, this is the lull in episode 4 when the inevitable beat comes where episode 3 finishes with all the main season guest stars like Cas, Rowena, Jack (or whoever) shelved for a bit so Sam and Dean can have their little personal adventures on the boring old monster of the week.

But people don't LIKE the monsters, Becky says. They have the same old villain monologues while the boys are tied up every time, Becky says! 

(And it's true, episode 4-6 especially seem to always be the most generic monster cases as things settle into the pattern for the season, and so this in the shape of the season is of course exactly how it needs to be to reflect on the shape of the season, because the very events of the episode are what write how the season itself is supposed to be structured. Because episode 4 usually comes with the first hints of how this simple monster case is actually pointing us towards our main arc problems...)

Honestly I'm just reeling to be hit with a meta episode this early in the season. They're like, an after midseason treat normally, right? Going meta too early and you break the game because you have to point out how you even build the stakes in the first place :P 

Becky giving us the writer's room breakdown of how, okay, episode 4, we need to increase the tension... except for Sam and Dean they're still in the monster of the week case. We the viewers and chuck's meta narration of the episode give us the story of where the real tension lies - with Chuck's writing choices, and the knowledge that he's writing events out for us. And what is influencing that - how he goes from his writers block to inspired to this moment where becky trips him into evil Chuck mode. Wrathful god from on high.

-

And the slant in his voice as he narrates him sitting down to type, going from a sort of neutral narrator to just this liiiiittle edge of danger in his voice that this is a threat that he "begins to type"

"I'll give you danger."

-

Oh that look on his face

-

Brrrr

-

I mean, or the mom and dad are protecting the son... Could chuck have been playing hot potato, swapping who is the vampire as he writes? He blatantly made Billy come down the stairs at that point. 

Kinda feel Billy is going to... bite it...

-

Oh, yup, the Edward Cullen vibes were true, Sam once again instinctively has figured this out. 

-

Yeeeeah he just straight up ate his girlfriend at the makeout spot. Rookie teen vamp mistake

-

He is raised to be a good boy so he goes home like mom dad OH NO I AM A VAMPIRE

and the coverup begins, and they start stealing cheerleaders to feed him???

-

"Awesome parenting. AWESOME." I love Sammy so much. 

-

"This is not Billy's fault! He was the victim!"

How much of this is based on shitty rich kid assault cases and how the parents and system swoop in to protect the boy and give him a slap on the wrist and strike it from his permanent record because it was an accident.

-

"What were we supposed to do?!" Again, a systemic failing, but only because there aren't worldwide PSAs about vampirism and a cure and recovery or rehabilitation system in place for people who have been bitten. A part of emergency healthcare. Hunters embedded in the system to go track down vampires who bit someone so they can be cured, while they're kept in a secure but comfortable facility away from tasty people, and pre-mixed sterile cure is made for them. 

The fact that people don't know... your son comes home a vampire, you love and support him, you perpetrate a series of actual crimes because this new horrifying thing beyond normal imagination happens to you and suddenly your family is in a horror scenario testing them beyond the bounds of human emotional limits. 

-

And then Dean's like, your son comes home a vampire, you cut off the head.

"You don't have children, do you?"

Hey, chuck, narrate THAT expression on Dean's face, you assclown. You total - aaaurghgfhghgh

*snaps keyboard in half and takes a bite out of it*

-

"We can bury them out back. Under the peonies."

yeah Chuck is playing against suburban moms in that same way he insulted Amara when he needed her help, now he's crafted this woman into a stereotype nightmare, against Becky's dream recovery to a good, interesting, well-balanced character.

-

Oh, Billy does have a sort of Jack vibe in his clothing sense as well, with the jacket Jack died in being a bit high school ........ letterman jacket? Is that the term? Anyway it was black and white and this guy's in a black and white hoodie 

-

"We just wanted him to have a normal life," the mom weeps

She's the Dean in this, Sam is the dad. Sam endlessly supporting and self-sacrificing towards Jack, Dean more likely to get into a guns pointing ready to kill or kill for him situation.

-

"I killed someone that I LOVE" honestly him becoming a vampire and then eating his girlfriend is a fucked up Destiel parallel to Dean coping with stress by cutting Cas out of his heart with a rusty spoon just to spite his face.

-

He is begging to be killed, saying he's lost control, that he's a monster... Yeah, Jack was right there last season before, you know. Oof.

-

Petition for Sam to wear a cuddly dad sweater again some time soon.

-

And now of course he's going to walk up to Sam and Dean and ask to be killed, huh. Because Chuck's reinflicting Jack on them through narrative parallels.

And the vampire case was free of Chuck's influence to a degree when it came to parallels and storytelling.

But now Chuck is saying, hey, I'm upping the stakes. NOW there are character parallels in here and this has got all too real. And now Sam and Dean are trapped in the Moriah situation I made and they couldn't complete last time. 

... Can they notice that in the midst of all this tension, that there's a narrator doing narrative symmetry as he once gloated to them he killed Jess just to mirror what happened to Mary?

-

And there's those words again. This is the only way.

-

Once again, we're running the maze and reaching the button at the end we press for narrative satisfaction.

-

Oh and of course they just take the boy out into the woods and there he is kneeling in front of them, waiting to be executed and they're like, freaking... Ned Stark in episode one of Game of Thrones, the guys at the very top of the judicial order when it comes to monsters. The kid knew Vampire Law, and these are the executioners of Vampire Law. 

He was gonna go study Vampire Law at school but I guess not now.

-

Oh and, of course, to make the parallel complete, Dean has the machete while Sam watches. 

-

I don't know the song but wow even not being able to interpret lyrics, it feels right. It's a heavy thing that just happened and the song sounds heavy >.>

-

And then the swing of the machete and we cut off, the music stopping abruptly too, mid-whatever note was playing.

Back to Chuck, who tells us Chuck say smiling, because he's got a big smug smirk at inflicting that much trauma.

Trauma that Becky can't even begin to understand, not knowing that Chuck did this whole kid fic thing with Jack and all.

-

Ooooor is it the stuff from Sam's dream that he's written, and somehow we've gone from a case of the week to Chuck knowing he wants to write this ending with all the demon Sam and it's been stewing in his mind for a little while, because Cas already saw a glimpse of it. But dammit he's ready to go for it now. 

-

Thanks, Becky >.>

-

At least she looks sick in horror. "It's so... dark" even someone from the classic SPN days, an old school fan, can't stand such a horrible everyone dies ending.

-

"Fans are going to love it"

*a fan looks very unhappy on screen*

Welp that's pretty much declaring out loud that an unhappy ending is the real big bad of the season, and we're fighting literally for happily ever after. We've ended up in the most basic fairytale trope under a million miles of postmodern nonsense. As deep as you go into the meta, at the end of the day, it's just, do the heroes live or die at the end. Is it a comedy or a tragedy, in the only 2 categories that the Greeks sorted plays into.

But this time, the villain is storytelling itself, and audience expectations themselves.

-

"It's AWFUL. Horrible! Hopeless!"

thanks Becky

Need to gif that for my girlfriend every time she tells me with her Kripke era only goggles that an everyone dies ending is the real ending and that's what will happen :'D

-

Becky crying on behalf of the fans, that he can't do this to the fans. Knowing that even though she owns her canon and the world she's built is great, Carver Edlund swooping in with one last novel that fucks canon forever is still going to leave an awful, How I Met Your Mother ending in everyone's mouth.

-

"There, you see, it's making you feel something! that's good, right?"

Holy shiiiiit Perez took one look at Buckleming and Singer, and deadeye shot them both in the head like that IS WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT KILLING CHARLIE. If you're feeling something, it's working!!

Ahahahaaaaaaa 

This episode is secretly dedicated to Robbie, going where he could or dared not. We stand on the shoulders of giants. 

or, fandom. "We stan on the shoulders of giants."

I'll embroider it or something.

-

Becky's family comes back at that point, officially ruining the rest of her day as she's now given all her free time to this ass, enabled him to be awful, and read the Worst Ending of SPN.

-

"You have to leave." "naaah I kinda like it here"

Kill him, Becky.

-

Oh yeah, Chuck deliberately stays just to ruin Becky's life some more. 

-

Wouldn't be surprised if he cuckoos her house so he pushes out her family so he can steal her as his editor and she's like, chained into the Metatron role and saving Becky is a 15x20 "I can't believe we're doing this" mission :P

-

OH FUCK YOU CHUCK, YOU CAN'T JUST KILL HER HUSBAND. 

WOW WOW WOW HOW DO YOU SUCK EVEN MORE THAN A SECOND AGO?

-

AND THE KIDS? NOT THE KIDS?

-

I unironically quote Good Omens Crowley talking about goats

-

Oh, he stowed them somewhere. Suspended animation in the void until Chuck's done with Becky. Oh she can have all the time to dedicate to writing... HIS writing.

-

He is still AWFUL.

-

Also, she is just now learning he's Not Just A Prophet.

-

"Oh, I'm God."

-

WHAT AN ASS

-

Did they make a mistake cutting the audio of Rob Benedict saying "Becksy- Becky" or was that deliberate, that Chuck just fucked up her name. Bird flying through the shot, do you keep it? His stumble means a chance to show Chuck not even caring enough to remember her name properly on first try.

-

And she turns to him and says, YOU BRING THEM BACK with all the rage of a momma bear.

-

He just talked over himself after he snapped Becky (Alright, Thanos. We have enough edgy dudebro snappy villains) so I am having trouble working out what he said. 

Guess he'll just be pulling her out if he needs an editor now.

-

"Chuck, alone, keeps grinning"

Possibly the most terrifying piece of dialogue of the entire narration.

-

"Well, that was an interesting one."

Aw the BM scene in the car. Classic SPN trope, so I'm guessing Chuck is still narrating, even if we drop in on the conversation with no comment on the car nyooming across the screen first.

-

Them just like yup, we'd have done it for Jack, HAVE done it for people we love. Who hasn't covered up some monster-related murders when you were out of control and feral?

But we were enforcing Monster Law just then, and had to act like impartial executioners to the scene. 

And that just made what they had to face before all that worse in reflection. Seeing not just that they could be pushed that way but what it looks like from the outside, to have to make the impartial decision NOT to allow it but to enforce Monster Law rather than bend it to their own whims. And mostly just because these random suburbanites didn't have the resources or know how to handle a son becoming a vampire while Sam and Dean are at least operating in a world where as the experts they might make a more informed decision or have the resources? 

-

Anyway now Dean starts talking about how he feels like just "cashing out" after all this loss, and. Ow.

But we're actively fighting the Worst Ending as the big bad of the whole show. Something they've been in conflict with the whole time, never being able to win a season well enough to truly retire. Always having something horrible happen to ruin any attempt at peace, and never getting it so both are kicking back at the same time. 

Don't worry, Dean. Narrative stakes are high, but one day you guys will eventually get the Big Win that has been eluding you the entire fucking time.

-

I hope.

-

AWWW Dean credits Sam with pulling him back from that edge when he was about to go out and shoot ghosts until he had no salt bullets left :') 

-

HEALTHY SUPPORT BETWEEN THEM WHAAAT

Oh wait yeah that crypt was, er, the Carver era mausoleum.

-

Dean wanted to get out and do work to save lives to get back to that feeling of being heroes... To give their life its ongoing meaning :( :( :(

-

"WE do the ugly thing so people can live happy."

Still not sure with so much focus on normal population vs those in the know, this won't end up being a thing where the SPN world changes for good at the end. I've got some speculation money on it now I guess :P

-

"Lucky them! Hah!!"

Poor Sammy.

-

Oh yep there's the narration. "they both sit -" but Dean's talking over it. 

"It doesn't change a thing. You know, we still Do. The. Job. but we don't do it for us. We do it for Jack. For Mom. For Rowena. We owe it to anyone who has ever given a damn about us to keep putting one foot in front of the other. No matter what."

WEEEEPING

This also wards off the unhappy ending by giving them a through purpose, which needs to be a foundation they re-establish. Like, this is the saving people hunting things speech of this season. The pep talk to explain to themselves who they are and what they do. So they know their values. So they know the base they're building from when it comes to the love they give back to the world. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Does Dean Winchester ever make you cry?

I feel like this is going to be a season of inspirational speeches, huh?

-

And Dean says Chuck is gone. Whooops. Now everything he says about being "finally free" is just heavy irony, since Chuck chose to remind us he was still narrating right before this speech. Be hilarious if he talks over the end of this.

-

He still thinks about Jessicaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

made especially worse since of course with their world turned on its head again, her death for narrative symmetry must be especially sharp in his mind.

-

"I don't feel free."

Well, he does still have the Mark of Chuck, linking him to Chuck and giving him a rather more obvious way to feel like something is just a liiittle bit off about Dean's big speech.

Because of course we have a final season where Sam has something magically messed up about him :'D

-

"Sometimes it's like I can't even breathe"

Ugh I'm so late to the episode, the queue to hug Sam must be a million miles long. 

*shuffles off to join it and wait my turn to squish him and stroke his hair and tell him it's okay*

-

Dean is like, we've done a million BM scenes in the Impala but Sam's never been this honest and broken down crying as a result.

-

"maybe I'll feel better in the morning" when, in your experience, has that ever happened no strings attached.

-

"And what if you don't?"

This must have been so much for Jared to do :( I don't normally see through their characters much because they're SO Sam and Dean for me, but obviously Sam talking so frankly about mental health stuff... The tears seem so honest, and I feel so owwwwwwwwwww. 

-

*low key evil whispering from Chuck over Sam's sad look out the window*

-

"This is going to be good"

"Next to him, sit Dean and Sam bobbleheads" They're TERRIFIED. Look what you did to those funko pops! Now they have anxiety!

The fact Chuck has taken over this friendly little shrine to Supernatural, now makes all the bobbleheads on his desk seem so ominous. Like, he's now a god surrounded by icons of worship to his creation. Urgh. BECKY MADE THIS FOR HERSELF, STOP APPROPRIATING THE STORY INTO SOMETHING SHE HATES. She literally has emotional precedence over him as the fan to the writer. WRITE TO MAKE YOUR FANS HAPPY. FUCK OFF.

-

I mean the way his typing is sending earthquakes through the desk with its intensity that sets them quivering.

Lordy. That's such a wonderful image and it's the sort of mad wonderful beautiful imagery you could only get going SO META DEEP. 

-

Season finale will be Sam and Dean climbing out your screen and defending you from evil monsters in your own home.


	5. 15x05

15x05 watching notes

*peers cautiously into the episode to see if it has audio description for the visually impaired masquerading as a meta level above what all the legally watching losers got to experience*

-

Ooh is Cas back already? He's in the recap and also his miserable fight with Dean, which just makes me so glad I've missed a large chunk of the fandom fallout from this and wherever they are in canon it's at least like 5-6 episodes ahead of THIS which is the wooorst. This episode can NOT feel good if Cas is wandering around right after the fight D:

-

Oh my god the recap pretty much was "so ghosts and god and shit, anyway here's the super emotional bit where Sam had to kill Rowena AND then the super emotional bit where Cas had to cut his losses with Dean acting like such a fuckwad about their relationship. 

Still feeling the parallels from that episode in my soul. Maybe because I am still so in love with Samwena. 

-  
  
Once again, I have no idea who the writer is, aside from Chuck. Let's play the guessing game. So far doing terribly.

-

This is a very gingam tent. gingham? I'm writing in notepad, no spellchecker, I apologise. Anyway it's a fabric that's having a bit of a revival or at least was last summer when I was reading about the prairie dresses being a big thing, and then the tent has 3 women in it so my first gut reaction was "little women" but I haven't read it or seen the film, so I'll just stop there :P 

Awwww I love the philosophy degree girl. She's the one degree path more useless than mine in Creative Writing so kudos to her for following her dream and then ending up driving for Uber. :P

I am wondering if they're sisters (triplets??) who seem to be about the same level in their journey to adulthood as they're all graduated and moving on in this moment... If they were sisters even 1 year apart each they'd not talk about growing up like this. If they're all friends, the show cast 3 blonde women and then had to give them distinguishing hats and neckerchiefs and stuff just so we could tell them apart, which seems like it has to be to SOME purpose because even when you're being super bland in your casting and doing all-white people, it's best to mix in different hair colours or something just to make it easier to tell them apart. The fact they're so similar has to mean something, right?

They were joking they had done this for years and not died of exposure, lampshading they're so aware of the REGULAR danger of camping but we know they're in the cold open of SPN so something terrible is about to happen to them which... well, exposure would be kind.

Philosophy Degree is the one who is the most freaked out about potential monsters while the others are laughing it off. 

Aaah whoooops that sure sounds like a girl getting torn apart by a werewolf.

RIP those girls

-

Ooh weird title. Proverbs 17:3

Which since I didn't see titles ahead of time, means NOW is when I have to go look that up while you all got to do that before the episode >.>

"The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the LORD tests hearts." 

Okay yeah that's a bit long to use as a title. Maybe this is Yockey, he likes long titles, but then someone was like, dude, no, make it shorter. And that's a good way to trim it down :P 

Title seems pretty self-explanatory now... Chuck's still fucking with them, and whatever they're making of themselves like Sam or Cas's philosophy of the rat maze, the true kind of... arbitrator of their worth/endgame of their souls/ability to survive the maze, is Chuck?

-

Ah Sammy. Wandering around with a shotgun and a tablet 

Character study in 2 props.

"Service sucks in the bunker, want to make sure you're getting these" Awwwww Sam. :( His bro-in-law isn't answering his texts AND WHOSE FAULT IS THAT

Sam seems kind of startled. Does he know Dean and Cas fell out like, FELL OUT. He knows things were shitty between them and it was Dean's fault, but he still seems guilty to be caught looking at his texts and reflecting on how many he sent and still no reply. Maybe he just suspects but he doesn't know if he can ask or how to bring it up.

-

"Ghost pepper jerky"

You are about to die. By the ghost you did not expect.

Sam warns Dean he won't like it - does he know Dean's Scoville limit from long long long experience, and where Ghost Peppers lie on it?

How often do his searches on google give him ghost pepper recipes instead of lore?

Probably happened more than 0 times.

Anyway the fact Sam is once again weighing in on what Dean eats and Dean is once again being defined... Like, the show uses food so much to talk about Dean but two cold opens in a row about Dean's eating habits, Sam and Dean like, negotiating their understanding of each other and themselves through the metaphor of what food Dean is eating today... 

it's wild.

Sam is delighted to see Dean's reaction, knowing he was right and he had interpreted and understood his brother correctly.

"You should have another piece."

If he's looking at his texts to Cas guiltily when Dean comes in, I'm gonna assume that he's also interpreted that Dean pissed off Cas bigtime and Cas is now punishing the both of them for it... Getting one over on Dean like this by sort of winning sibling points in the same way Dean got some for tricking Sam to eat the bacon last episode... 

(no way to keep a tally - only they know the full score and who's ahead but it's a lifetime accumulation and when you die, you get to see the scoreboard - it's in Billie's notebooks along with everything else.) 

Sam is basically now being put in this power dynamic relationship where he of course is also emotionally wronged by Dean as a result of Cas ignoring him and making him worry when Sam n Cas were pretty much good, give or take some snapping back and forth in the stress of things in 15x02 and honestly that was Buckleming, what is real anyway. But it gives Sam a footing if he will address this and get to chew Dean out.

SAM KEEPS GOING WITH THE WATER

this is in fact, no longer about Cas. This is foreshadowing demon!Sammy and how he becomes demonised from both demon blood and instead of torturing in hell, torturing his brother right here and now. Yes. Definitely. This is my speculation and Chuck's foreshadowing. Hah. 

-

"What?" "Hrughblurb" "What?" "BLURB"

I love Sam.

-

I love Dean too but right now because I am laughing hysterically at the poor man it feels mean to say so.

-

YES, it IS Yockey!!!!!

-

Teasing Sam was another clue it was him. Sam in a Yockey episode is my second favourite Sam after Sam in a Bobo episode. Yockey!Sam is hilarious, while Bobo!Sam makes me cry all the time.

Not sure if he knew he was going to be headhunted or whatever happened to him when he wrote this or not so I don't know if this will be a big soppy farewell like some writers have done, while others have just disappeared midseason with no fanfare. 

Yockey's episodes have always been so special though, it's hard to say what a dramatic goodbye would be :'D Maybe we've been spared by the suddenness of his departure, the sort of episode that melts the skin off your face Raiders style if he had written it. You know, whatever wrap up vibes he would have planned for his final episode on the roster at the end of the season.

I'll assume the brace position just in case.

-

AW SHIT IT'S SPEIGHT AS WELL??? 

I belatedly remember seeing that he is directing like 15 episodes this season and I'd forgotten and now I am delighted. Imagine starting as playing a one episode monster of the week and 13 years later you're one of the regular director rotation.

-

Anyway, poor Dean. Poor, gross Dean. 

I hope he cleaned up the ghost pepper jerky blob he spat onto the BEAUTIFUL MAP TABLE.

-

So we know one (1) ghost that can beat Dean in single combat

-

GYAH more flashes of the horrible Worst Ending? We are suddenly flung through the Bunker with high tension music, seem to come up behind 5x04 Lucifer!Sam sitting at the table (or Asmodeus. Who else wears all white suits? No, it's Sam hahahhaa) and Dean approaches, mirroring 10x22 but not awful in that same empty rage way, as he comes up the steps into the library angry and holding a gun. The mirroring is awesome because even though this is just a brief imaginary exploration of the Worst Ending (and I kinda love we're seeing it through the season??) we get stuff like this. Like it or loathe it, season 10 did have a ton of iconic stuff, in the sense of creating moments that can be reflected like this and immediately convey something so awful. In this case, remembering how Dean was happy to shoot a kid who was a Sam double and Cas was like Dean wouldn't do that. The Worst Ending of the show has always been filling John's order from 2x01 where Dean finally does have to kill Sam for who he becomes in the Worst Ending scenario.

it's fun to pick up back here in a weird way just for the nostalgia of how miserable the first few seasons were with Dean being tormented by this - all his pre-Hell storyline was pretty much entirely setting him up then destroying him on this point and since then, obviously, multiple more tests have come his way asking if he would do it. Season 10 being the closest Dean was ever brought to doing it since then in a meaningful way where the story was focussing on unpacking all his issues via the looming threat of fratricide. 

(John Winchester's legacy, man. Chuck's fucking this up though because they, er, met John last year and hashed it out as adults. I mean it doesn't, like, DELETE trauma but they sure as hell are better adjusted than their season 2-5 selves who were the playing pieces of this game last time.)

-

Oh yikes he has the fixed up Colt. Which doesn't kill Lucifers... would it kill a demon blood Sam or demon!Sam?

Right through the head... lemme guess, he's really gonna 5x10 it

Oh well, at least Dean only had to live with having killed his brother for real at long last after a lifetime of being plagued by the whole Cain trope, for a few seconds before Sam sat up again.

Worst moment ever in his life but ow.

-

Oh, nope those are the Lucifer glowy red eyes so that's not demon!Sammy teasing Dean, Sam's now all in on this nonsense.

Is this another draft, separate from the "demon!Sammy kills Dean" thing because this seems a bit weird to de-escalate from Lucifer!Sam to demon blood Sam.

Guess we'll only know for sure as we're getting this all out of context as Chuck thinks of it if Lucifer now kills Dean, proving this is a different draft. 

Once again, the worst case scenario is centred on Sam going bad, not on Dean having something horrific happen to him. But Sam losing his agency due to badness and Dean's resulting emotional turmoil over having to deal with it.  
  
Guess in the wider narrative that Sam's trauma is the left over pain in the story still and needs some wrapping up in the main arc as a farewell. In the sense that season 7 vanquished the demon blood/Lucifer storyline but in many ways the trauma is still just out there. Like Yockey's episode where Sam and RoRo discussed their trauma together. So Sam is the one who gets the wound and as a result of shooting Chuck at the end of last season, and is the one being vindictively fucked with in the plot the most. Just like in the early years where Something Was Wrong With Sammy.

*sound of Chuck hitting Sam with a plunger resonating through the entire narrative*

-

Of course with a different draft where it was Lucifer, not demon blood Sam we're back to 5x04 and always ending up here...

But Chuck is just trying to force that ending in the same way that fans for years have been freaking out that Endverse Might Happen Now, because Lucifer's warning that it would always end up this way is... not unanswered because I think 5x22 actually did, in its original context at least, show that they beat the story and told the bad ending to fuck off. But the longer the show went, especially season 9-10 passing through the date of 5x04 on the IRL present day calendar... It has always been something where the longer the show continued, the more people wondered if this was an ingredient of any possible endgame, just because it was something that had been teased and therefore is a line too delicious to resist.

"We both knew it had to end this way"

(I'm not taking a brownie point for writing the above paragraph before hitting play, because, see above, low hanging fruit, and Yockey reusing the line is like, duuuh. 5x04 but the rose garden is the Bunker Library, taking it into the home. The heart. This is Sam's room in the same way the kitchen is Dean's - Dean is walking into Sam's heart and seeing Lucifer!Sam essentially.)

-

ALSO pulling these threads to portray 5x04 Lucifer back into the story, Yockey gets to write him like no time elapsed, and, more importantly.......... no mangling of Lucifer's character elapsed???? 

I thought Yockey was a wizard before but this sorcery is just. Thanks for reminding us Lucifer was briefly cool and scary?

Well. 

For 11x09 I flipped tables that Lucifer was not appearing as Sam, as his last known vessel, and I stand by the seemingly simple aesthetic choice of doubling Jared against himself vs hiring LITERALLY ANY OTHER ACTOR, like, they could have had Idris Elba in there or something, would have just from the visual and the themes it would silently evoke of Sam vs his dark mirror, have catapulted the Lucifer arc from season 11 onwards in a completely different direction if it had been Sam vs Samface Lucifer. At least for that one scene, before Lucifer began roving around in various different vessels. 

No Hallucifering hammy acting. Back to the actual version of Lucifer who got dragged into Hell back in 5x22 and have him re-emerge cold and furious instead of cartoonish. 

Dying mad about it.

-

Lucifer just burned the shit out of Dean and rhapsodically turned to enjoy the warmth of the flames on his face, before Sam is jolted awake in the car with red streetlights on him and fucking hell Speight-Yockey is the wooooooooooooorst.

If you have been reading my rewatch notes from seasons 1-5 especially, I was very big on the show's language of the lights falling on them in the car, and how red was such a warning/symbol of hellish nonsense. Well, that is not something I've really felt happens all the time any more but this sure was an example of some old season 1-2 car lighting nonsense.

-

Last time I remember being excited about the lighting in the car was the (nice yellow) light falling on Dean as he got the call from the newly alive Cas.

-

Sam looking over his shoulder into the back seat a couple of times like he might see a burned up Dean there, EVEN THOUGH DEAN IS NEXT TO HIM DRIVING

ooof, he's going through it.

-

"Come on, I'll... Freud you." 

Dean.

Seriously.

And of course Sam shrugs off any attempt at dream analysis with the classic "I'm fine"

I do like that Dean is willing to do something he used to think was somehow sissy, like discussing dreams, and doesn't tell Sam to write about it in his teenage girl journal or whatever. Back in season 1, Sam was having his psychic kid visions while snoozing in the car next to Dean then jolting awake, so this is extremely familiar territory, and a chance for Dean to make up for lost opportunities by addressing it early. 

of course Sam also has to learn the lesson to open up about it and not be ashamed about the images he's being bombarded with but to actually discuss them and wonder what they mean. Only lingering shame that he's still Evil somehow could maybe stop him from just opening up like "wow my trauma is being wacky today in my head hahahaha" 

They need to spend more time with younger milennials and Gen z kids. They'll teach them ironic self care and open discussion of mental health issues :'D

-

Giant pine tree alert.

-

8 minutes in and no sign of Cas... Don't tell me he was only in the recap because Dean is feeling shitty about it, because that's Too Much and I am weak. 

I honestly forgot to look at the credits. Too late now :P

-

Omg Sam and Dean actually having their conversation about their disguises on camera? We get to see Dean proudly showing off the fish and wildlife guise he's cooked up for them. I have no idea if those hats are legit. They look like the fish version of Bobby's old hat. And Misha's cock hat.

-

Hamill and Ford... that's an old one. So old, Sam has season 1 hair in the photo and/or that's actually Mark Hamill, I can't tell and it's just hit me that with their matching hair from certain periods of their life, they really did look alike for a while.

I mean, did Dean find the old IDs from season 1 wedged into a crack in the car and decided to run with it for the sake of nostalgia? Clinging to what is real because as manipulated as all the stuff in the time period of the Winchester Gospels was, that sort of fun bonding activity like playing Ford & Hamill is something Sam and Dean had between themselves, that they built as their own emotional bond, not something that they were made to do. A silly detail too far out of Chuck's notice to force them to do for any reason. 

"You look like a baby" "Look at you"

This being used as moment to reflect on the inevitable march of time and how Sam and Dean have made it 15 years in business together is absolutely killer.

Also something we experience rewatching the show and jumping back from present canon and general awareness of the lives of the actors, to their wee babby selves.

-

"I look exactly the same"

I mean there was a meme for a while about how Jensen wasn't aging but he does start looking older from baby-faced to adult within the first couple of seasons and he's now obviously looking like a well-kept forty year old dude since that's what he is. He did have a good stretch of the show where he wasn't showing many signs of aging but once his laugh lines came in around season 8-9 onwards, he did actually look his age, and all the better for it.

(Because Dean's got Jensen's laugh lines, Jensen's accidentally bestowed the look of a happy life on Dean, which kills me so much)

Still, Dean hasn't changed his hair or even experimented with an unfortunate moustache or anything unlike Sam and his various attempts at personal grooming. A great deal of his personal habits and tastes have always been frozen in time or stuck where trauma put them, and personal grooming is another of those things. He has had nearly the exact same haircut give or take some length on top for literally the 15 years we've known him. Sam at least experimented with hilariously sharp sideburns for a year or two.

Right now he's getting more and more desperate to make Sam agree nothing's changed, literally Peter Pan-ing his way to avoiding growing up.

-

"You the Sheriff?" "S'what the mug says" *puts down a mug that says I'M THE SHERIFF"

I am DYING

-

So of course she does a double take to inspect their 15 year outdated IDs against their adult faces, and specifically Dean's, even though Sam's in some ways changed more, especially hair, just to emphasise that, sorry Dean, you are an adult now.

-

Go pay your damn taxes.

-

I adore the taxidermy'd mountain lion with a sheriff hat. 

-

I mean it's kinda ghoulish but this is America, and I guess rural hunting America where this sort of thing is totally normal and people hunt for food and to protect people, hence especially the pride of having a bear and mountain lion in the sheriff station as a sign that they can take down these threats and protect their people. Or, since one is wearing a hat, to say they're as powerful as them. 

The mural behind her also has the deer and ducks "highlighted" with a real deer head and ducks, which I'm sure also has a lot of interesting stuff to say about it, especially in the meta way of taking a finished picture and adding your own stuff to it to make it more 3D and real and personal and to project what YOU want from it. To go with the Becky message of last episode when it comes to show vs fandom.

-

Anyway sheriff knows her shit, so she can say that it was NOT an animal attack and with all this taxidermy around her we kinda have to trust her on this even if we didn't know better and assume it was a monster. She gets to the concept of a human but he's a monster, in the mundane sense. 

Her skill with the medium she works in has expanded her flat mural to a 3D collage, and she has the power of interpretation based on her knowledge and skill in the field to make accurate calls with leaps of interpretation to something approaching accuracy. Or thematic accuracy. She's not to be mocked for thinking things like this, unlike the last Loflin episode in season 8 with the coroner or sheriff who was conviiiiinced it was zombies and was telling them to aim for the head on the way out the door.

The boys both look like they seriously respect her too already, seeing a no-nonsense skilled woman, who could also probably very easily take to the existence of real monsters, as have many who they've met along the way. Like, should things break bad in town and they have to get her involved, she's an asset, not a liability. 

There's also the possibility monsters have actually been around these parts before, she's dealt with them, knows about them, and is now trolling these dumb hicks from fish and wildlife who don't know monsters exist and - yeah

-

Aaaand there's the "heart ripped out" comment which confirms it may be the run of the mill werewolf.

Last episode we had a generic monster case with a vampire, which of course even without the literal narration I thought I was getting, seemed by the end to be obviously linked at least to Chuck's mood if not his writing, to twist the case around. There's definitely the sense they're still trapped in his maze since he's still here, AND Becky's got him back to writing so now they're even more likely to be in it. 

The concept that it might just be a werewolf but there's Other Horrible Factors which are Chuckfuckery is quite plausible to me considering the cut and dry "it was vampires" of last episode, where the real tension came from an entirely different place. 

-

Awww Ashley survived. (Apparently these girls were all friends so they are all just blonde. Wow.)

She has a big ole scar on her face which has to mirror the look of a tear falling from her eye except it's bloody. 

Of course Cas crying a bloody tear after killing Samandiriel is another of those iconic images in the show... That's the single bloody tear. Lots and lots of bloody tears would be from Bloody Mary back in season 1. So she's either lying or is braincontrolled by someone to lie at great cost to herself, if that's the case... watch me be completely wrong and this note to be a meaningless thought :P 

-

Oooh we do see the guy chasing her in her memory. Another one where things are not meant to be a huuuuge mystery to us the viewer if we hadn't already guessed werewolves.

And we weren't shown him in the cold open, presumably for the dramatic tension there, but now as soon as we're at the first available point in the investigation that it might come up, we're allowed this detail. Even before Sam and Dean have it, though they're guessing from the heart thing. Just means we the audience can identify him again as soon as he's on screen. 

-

Sam pulls the doctor aside to leave Dean to ask more questions - I'm just remembering how Dean has historically claimed to rely on Sam's puppy dog eyes and how he's the one who would help get stuff out of people who need a sensitive touch. 

I mean, presumably they've got to ask this girl if she got bitten or get it out of the doctor, and Sam's handling the authority figure and Dean's going for the sensitive questions to the wounded girl.

-

And sure enough within a minute of gently talking to her, she reveals that it was a man, with fangs and claws, and Dean continues using the gentle soothing voice to tell her it was a werewolf and this is indeed something Fish and Wildlife handle on the regular apparently.

-

Huh, she wasn't bitten. The werewolf really did just seem to be threatening her and trying to keep people out of the territory??? 

It wasn't a "keep one alive to tell the story" because he threatened to kill her if she tattled, but at the same time he chose not to kill her then... Maybe the ole local with a crush on her thing. Maybe she was his uber driver once and he gave her a 4 star rating because he was in a bad mood and has regretted it ever since. 

-

Dean promising to protect Taylor reminds me of how they failed to protect Hayden when Mick came on the hunt and killed her. I guess since it's just Sam n Dean they don't have to worry about that >.>

-

Oooh she knew his name so he must be a local which means that this is an interesting horrible parallel to continuing to live in a town with someone you know is an abuser/attacker of women except with werewolf instead of Human Crime. Extrajudicial monster law... I mean the season so far even in 5 episodes now has a theme of Monster Law vs Human Law, the hunters trying to contain a ghost infested town and mount a refugee effort at the school and quarantine zone with their adorable off-brand signage. Then we had the bizarre logics of the vampire boy case and how parents are supposed to handle it, while Sam stands around feeling miserable that human cops can't do vampire crime, and now we have an analogy to what do you do when you know a local werewolf, and you're lucky hunters have rolled into town immediately because WOW that would suck to know and be able to do nothing about otherwise. 

Maybe this Andy guy had a crush on Ashley in school and that's why he spared her. I mean, it could be that simple.

-

Sam goes off to investigate, while Dean stays behind to watch over Ashley, and sees her weeping about the aftermath of the attack.

A single bloody tear scratched into her face becomes SO metaphorical to this sort of trauma. OW.

-

Oh wow his address was a shady cabin in the woods? Who knew.

They got to drive the car right up to it, and that's good, remembering Red Meat and poor Sam's mission to get back to the car :'D

-

Oh but the shady cabin has CUTE HEART SHUTTERS ON THE WINDOWS? Come on, set people :'D

-

Theme this season: hearts, once again. Except like this guy has hearts on his shutters and if this is the werewolf house, he's literally a dude who eats hearts, not someone with a cutesy facade. More of a joke about how it looks cutesy but... The symbolism means something very different to the werewolf.

-

Ooh Andy lives with his brother Josh... Sibling parallels! *rubs hands together* 

... 

*remembers how much everyone hated 10x04*

Oh man, I just remembered this fandom seems to hate werewolf episodes as a collective, just always ranking them among the lowest of the low. (Except Heart sometimes I guess)... 

Yockey joining a weird club of people who dipped on a MotW episode and also people who wrote the weird werewolf episode.

-

Anyway the IDs with their baby photos in seem to blow their cover almost at once I'd guess. Like, I think they know these are hunters now :D

-

"We don't want visitors" Notable again in an episode that started where Sam was missing Cas a great deal and Dean's put them into creepy shed in the wood isolation with shutters over his heart >.>

-

OH I'm slow. Excuse me, only 1 coffee so far this morning. 8x10 ends in a creepy cabin in the wood with the isolated brothers too.

-

I was distractedly amused by the werewolf culture that includes the stupid werewolves in the open of Wayward Sisters, and the Kardashian Argument Werewolves in the last episode of season 13. Just like. Werewolves as big dumb puppers. 

-

Werewolf in a cuddly cable knit sweater.

What did Dean say in like 8x19 or wherever, "never trust a guy in a sweater" and then minutes later we meet Metatron who is also wearing a sweater.

And of course Benny's maker was rocking the white cable knit, though painfully obvious god metaphors aside, that may also just have been because they wanted a sort of ship captain vibe.

-

Andy starts trying to play off like, oh we're just hunters and trappers of rabbits in the woods, maybe we can help. Maybe angling to be brought along on a hunting trip so he can kill them in the woods?

Whatever it is, he's very anxious as they try and talk like fish and wildlife who know they're werewolves and innocent isolated brothers who are definitely werewolves.

-

I love Sam's silver pen game.

-

"We don't have a phone" Come on Sam, they live isolated in the woods, what did you expect.

-

Cut to a shot that puts Dean loudly between the colourful heart shutters.

(Colourful, but in a cold blue way)

-

"Well I say we shoot them right now" says Dean right on the doorstep

(obviously a sign that if he had done that it would have been terrible practice and that there's more to the story and they're always the best hunters because they don't shoot first like that, but genuinely try and figure the mystery out)

-

Josh immediately rips into his dumb brother for his anxious helpfulness :P

"You are a terrible werewolf!"

-

Oooh no Josh killed the girls but Andy just chased off Ashley and didn't want to eat her heart???? 

IS ANDY A SOFT WEREWOLF WHICH IS WHY HE IS IN A CUDDLY SWEATER?

I was wondering about Josh in plaid and Andy not, since in the shadows it was so hard to tell which was which in broad daylight when they look the same but I was wondering if it was Josh, not Andy. Turned out we DID see Andy and Ashley wasn't wrong about which brother attacked her, but my ???? feeling about it turns out that at least, violent murdery plaid was a clue and swaddled in a cosy white sweater is absolutely making Andy look non-threatening.

Honestly we've had that whole run of Evil Sweater Wearers but the vibe once the werewolves talk alone is that this is honestly coding him as sweet at first sight :P 

And of course the plaid is part of the whole monsters just like us thing from 15x02 which the terrible and dropped subplot of people returning to their neighbourhood in frustration was used to show the dead and alive had similar feelings but flipped. Now the hunter plaid is being used to mark violent werewolves, in an episode where Sam and Dean get to run around in their everyday clothes but with a puffy jacket and cap, Bobby-style, to indicate a level of authority. 

And especially because fish and wildlife does seem to overlap so heavily with the roles of a hunter, that if people in rural forest areas knew werewolves were just one more problem to go with bears and mountain lions, COULD the jobs be rolled together?

-

"I made her promise not to teeell" Andy whines.

And then they get to the heart of it - their dad was the one who had ethics for them and Andy wants to do what Dad would want but Josh is rebelling and wants to feed the beast and do what they were banned from doing by the well-meaning father.

Which is interesting because father metaphors are in a weird place on the show right now. John got to have some redemption - true redemption where they talked it out and understood what was going on and everything - but God is currently the big bad and he was always an extrapolation of John to the worst extreme. His characterisation SPAWNS from mirroring John, not the other way around, in the wider narrative. 

And then Sam and Dean are rebelling against God's awful vision and not John any more. Having been able to set him to rest there's not much they can really do to make things any better with him, you know? And in any case, Sam and Dean might have different feelings about it but they're united in actions. 

I'd assume based on last episode - even knowing it wasn't AS blatantly scripted as I thought it was - that Chuck is fucking with everything, so I also can add the detail that Chuck might be representing the father as himself, someone with a positive vision and the son rebelling is SamnDean right now, and the son trying to do what the father wanted is an ideal version of SamnDean who bend the knee and listen to the idea that father knows best, and without following his ideals you become a base monster version of yourself.

Like, Chuck trying to cast a morality judgement on them for not doing what he wants. Saying, if you'd done what I wanted all along, you'd never have become such horrible people in the meantime. 

Also in my new draft you both just stink of armpits so much all the time nyeer. 

-

"I don't lie to you, I look out for you" coupled with the face-holding that Sam n Dean indulge in only when one of them is literally actually dead for real in a season finale or once that time Dean killed a bunch of people in 10x09. 

Anyway absolutely classic Bros line, something mirroring the kind of thing to squee about if you love their bond, of course being mirrored by these werewolves who are once again being Sam and Dean or SamnDean vs Chuck!SamnDean depending on which way you're interpreting this. Modelling idealised brotherhood, this sort of paragon idea of what it's supposed to be. But the blatantly evil brother with the bloodlust for stealing human hearts is saying this to try and calm the soft roundfaced one who just wants to do what Father said and not rebel but be good. Even as the bad one argues they need to at least clean up one last loose end before they stop the murdering. Because there's always one more kill to make, a "but first", one more bad deed to do, blah blah lay your weary head to rest etc. 

-

SLEEPY BEAR INN :D

I don't care about anything any more this is my new favourite thing

-

Awww they're taking Ashley here to keep her safe. Of course the wallpaper is coooovered in pictures of the native large huntable fauna around here.

-

Oh NO Sam is questioning the PLOT OF THE EPISODE. "Doesn't it seem a little... too easy?" his Mark of Chuck is bothering him and he's starting to think that it does seem a little too obvious. That a plot twist is coming. Like he's bothered by this tether to a wider understanding of the situation beyond tunnel vision on the case in front of them.

You gotta analyse the metanarrative and figure this out, Sammy!

-

"Easy's good. I like easy." Yeah, Dean's hoping this is one of their hunts that doesn't even make it to a real episode but is just some time filler in between. He doesn't want this to be a part of their story. Boring is good.

-

BTW is Ashley actually dressed like some sort of girl scout again or is that just her fashion choice?

-

Omg omg omg omg all the lil b ears climbing the room dividers I CAN'T WITH THIS PLACE

I am moving here, i don't care about the risk of werewolves sitting outside in a van

-

"Don't worry" says bad ideas werewolf to the lil brother who is having very reasonable doubts seeing that the hunters are in the same place as their quarry. Which one of them is going to get killed over this dumb plan and which will live to regret it for at least the next half of the episode, huh?

-

Whooooops then Ashley hits Dean with a "do you like your job" right when he was starting to have fun.

It's rude, okay? Now we have to deep dive how he feels about being a hunter right in his most dramatic existential crisis to date and that's saying something. Well, except that it's really just knowing he was right the whole damn time with all the previous existential crises.

-

He sits down like he's on a therapist couch at long last.

"Do I like it? I do." He has always lived up and idolised their job, but... 

A moment later, he cracks and says the thing that slays all the Dean fans - the admission that yup those guitar lessons as a teen were chasing his real passion, that he would have followed music and been a rock star, and okay he's joking about being Jimi Hendrix but there's still a weight behind it. The better you know Dean through the years, the more it hurts.

-

Chuck just taught himself to play guitar because he fancied it looked cool, Lucifer never even learned to play the damn thing even when he was a rockstar, and poor old Dean has dragged himself through every horror with a tiny candle in his heart for the idea he could have just done music. 

Nice sort of indie career roadtripping the USA for gigs. Just rowdy crowds instead of monsters. A good parallel to where he is now, except he's been selling his CD (or... tapes) out the back of the car instead of it being full of guns.

-

But he has to play that all off even if it's always the thing he comes back to, and he has to say, "I'm where I'm supposed to be". I guess this is somewhat accepting his place in the maze like Sam said, except they're still hoping/assuming Chuck is gone. Starting to see the same things in their job he's always liked in the context of Sam's explanation of what was worth it despite how it was all manufactured. But still with a sense that he's been placed here, not that he's chosen it. That there's always that divine hand of fate that gets to decide what "supposed" is. And he doesn't hate the work, he even relishes a lot of it. But his choice to do it... Just like in 9x07 where we see him learning guitar only for the lack of choice represented by his family obligation to hunt tearing it all away.

(Can't wait for existential crisis round 2 when Chuck pops back up on the radar... Amara's taking much longer than I thought to get to them)

-

Letting them live in ignorance that there's a big bad is utter torture. 2 episodes of them not knowing that it's not over and I'm crawling out of my skin about Chuck on their behalf :P

-

Hi, it is the 16th of November 2020 and I found these notes in my dropbox on my new laptop while deciding I ought to maybe, you know. 

Watch the show which made Destiel canon an episode ago. 

Yeah I'm now kinda spoiled for some stuff but not for others! And I wanna see this bananas narrative through because OH BOY this is a different world than it was in the summer. 

Or. Whenever I was watching this. 

Hi yes I have made the decision to just drop back in to try and catch up before the end this week. :) 

-

Ashley talking about losing her bffs and having no one and Dean is like wah all my friends are dead too. 

"It's all just so random and awful" 

Dean's like, I can relate except for the random part. 

"Wouldn't it be great if everything is planned out for you?"

Oh great so Chuck pretty much is literally writing her for this scene, huh? Dean moves in a - not startled, but definitely questioning, you-have-my-attention way, because THIS is the concept he rebels again, this is what he has been fighting the whole damn time, even before he knew he was doing it. Even back in season 1 or 2 where he and Sam were arguing about fate and Dean was furiously anti fate, so long before they knew they were trapped in a narrative. 

The only question here is if Dean wonders at how she's giving him this sob story posing the question to make him question his own position, how he might not have lost all his friends and have no direction in his life, no chance to be a rockstar, if he had just played along.

-

YIKES I've just realised that Chuck would have wanted basically the Lisa ending for Dean if he had managed to bully the story to a close by the end of season 5 and thought his work was done at that point and fucked off to leave them to it. 

No shade against Lisa herself, who is lovely and put up with far too much from Dean, but it was NOT where he would have been happy nor the sort of life he should have ended up in. There's a reason the whole first half of 6x01 is framed ambiguously as a nightmare.

-

I want the sleepy bear alarm clock.

Sleepy bear Dean next to it. 

... oh yeah like when Cas called sleepy Dean a grumpy bear on their cowboy adventure. 

Hope his reflexes are still as good.

-

LOL no he slept right through whatever just happened.

-

Eeeeeyyy a good old murder room in a creepy cabin. Classic stuff. 

-

Hm. Sweater werewolf is like "wah I don't like this, this isn't who we are" and evil brother is like "this is exactly who we are!" so they're taking being parables for the Winchesters pretty well. Bet they'd have got on fine and not killed anyone if Chuck hadn't need someone to literally set an example of. So they just redecorated a murder room and got to work.

You ever just wake up one day and think fuck it I'm giving in to my bestial nature for philosophical reasons about my self-definition as a monster?

-

"There is no way those dumbasses took Ashley without me waking up. No way." Honestly, if Chuck was fucking with Dean, doing this to him to undermine his sense of strength and ability to protect people would be a pretty cruel trick. 

Like. It's a lampshaded plothole that Dean is the grumpy bear who will wake up ready to kill if the proper rituals are not observed.

And yet.

-

I mean the werewolves may have had some divine providence to help them steal Ashley from under Dean's nose but they're still stupid enough to take her back to their cabin that Sam and Dean already knew they had...

-

So many ANTLERS.

Hope the sheriff isn't also a werewolf who is part of like, a vast rural community of werewolves who all genuinely like hunting things.

There were a lot of bones on the table in the murder room, some way too large to be people bones. I bet it was just where they prepared things they killed in the woods, until they swapped to people and stopped washing the walls.

-

Did Sam just get knocked out because honestly I've been gone so long I have no longer got any sense of the tally of how many times he's been knocked out.

-

Sweater!bro is unable to pull the trigger on Sam, mirroring the season finale last time where no one wanted to murder Jack just because Chuck wanted them to. 

Are the werewolves also fighting the manipulations on them, or else giving into them?

Will the murder!bro listen?

Nope, sweater!bro shot him to stop him trying to manipulate him to give into his rage just because they could. He wants to do what their father wanted... 

Is this a message that Fratricide Is Always The Answer To Ethical Problems?

-

The Good Place would have been a very different show in that case.

-

In any case, we get "he was my brother, and he promised, but he was never going to stop" which is of course very much something that the show has played on with the brothers turning bad and becoming serial killers in all but name, or going bad. It hurts Sam because he's currently having these trauma dreams about his bad selves, and it hurts Dean because he's still only a few years out from a very personal breakdown that the Mark of Cain caused that was the main emotional exploration of the show for like the whole of Carver era, and left for Dabb era to heal him from since Carver dipped before that could be properly resolved. 

-

So I guess sweater!wolf is here to demonstrate that it's that easy to shoot your brother down if he's become a monster, and your father wouldn't have approved. 

Like you can't even do the easiest part of this, Dean??? Season 2! We could have righted this ship by season 2 and yet we had to have 13 more seasons all because you are a wuss who won't kill your brother! Jeeze!!

-

Aaaand then of course sweaterwolf (name of my band?) kills himself with a shot to the heart because of course he does, since he is now, despite not killing anyone before, tarred with the Worst Murder, the old Cain n Abel thing of fratricide, and how can you live with yourself when you have done that?

Look how much tidier this world would be if the two of you had just taken this message to heart when you were supposed to. 

-

We're barely past the halfway point so yeah, looks like Yockey is gonna Yock, as per his other episodes which do 1/2 monster of the week and then 1/2 "what the fuck was that?" spawned by the seemingly easy monster of the week.

-

"Yeah, that was weird." Not many cases where you don't have to fire a shot to get it all sorted.

-

Cut to a shot of Ashley looked absolutely traumatised by what just went down.

-

LOL And then Chuck kills her at random in a Final Destination style "so that's what all the antlers were for" moment. 

Also reminiscent of Hannibal, where the initial murders that draw Will and Hannibal together involved the "shrike" killer who mounted his victims on antlers for display. Chuck very much is this sort of looming serial killer figure over the season. 

Ashley's blondeness also is reminiscent of Mary/Jess being dead just because of the trope in the show of dead blonde women. 

I suppose that explains why she looked like that, idk why her friends at the opening all had to be clones of her. I guess because it would be worse to kill off some ethnically diverse friends but then keep her around getting some character development until, well. Ow.

-

Anyway Dean was already questioning what the fuck had just happened, and now the random cruelty of this dead have them shaken. It's... a lot. Like, this COULD happen and they lead violent, weird lives.

But this would be a strange one if it ended here for them. 

-

LOL never mind she is a werewolf now. "Well this is a bitch" and I would have spat tea if I had been drinking it because this is hilarious. 

-

Oh, her personality really has changed, so has she been a werewolf all along as well, playing the part of a honeypot? But then why did all... that... happen with the brothers...? 

I mean I guess I should really just watch a few minutes uninterrupted as god intended. 

-

just saying I kinda called it with her cutesy girl scout outfit being ridiculous.

-

LOL Lilith??? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

Gods I love Yockey.

is Dean even seeing this? I mean is this even real or is Sam just Hallucifering Lilith.

Hallilithnations. 

Nah, Dean sees her.

Guess we're doing this!

-

Thoughts while I went to get tea: was Lilith just hanging out here manipulating people and set this whole charade up herself right down to getting the werewolves to do all that, or did she just hop in to a ready made crime scene to join in the fun. 

Also it's just another thing to call back to dark!Sammy that she was ultimately the one who killed Dean for the deal that he made in opposite defiance to the supposed order to kill his brother, and then obviously Sam went on his season 4 rampage ultimately ending up as dark as he ever would go and killing her to free lucifer etc. So very on the nose to bring her back when we're talking about this thanks to these bad drafts floating around. 

And of course Lilith would be why Ashley was blonde. 

-

LOL She was supposed to seduce Dean? Right after Cas walked out on him? Fat chance, Lilith. 

She does seem to be following Chuck's orders, which I hope she goes on to explain why she'd listen to God, unless it is as simple as she was set free to piss off Sam and Dean, and mutual loathing of the same hunters binds God and Lilith to a purpose.

A thwarted seduction is very on the nose to say hey so Dean isn't gonna sleep with a cute freshly graduated girl who's still like nearly half his age, because that's tropey and what we would have done back in season 4 when Lilith made out with Sam until Dean waved Chuck at her... That's yanked away and Dean only gets an incline of his head to comment on it now being long past possible. 

Of course in the circumstances no it would never happen. In the wider world, though, it talks to a concept of Dean just in general being past this phase, and the thwarting, the way the story suddenly got messed up, this slip apparently being accidental, though both the presence of the antlers and the accidental push were by Dean's hand, takes us to this place where the narrative itself is being messed up, the planned tropes destroyed. The characters are causing it from within by their own actions. The writers then have to stop and reflect on what has been wrought.

-

She WISHES the story was to kill them, but she goes on to explain the bond villain plan... To set up an easy hunt to bait them, and then to make sure they SAW the murder-suicide. That's all it is. The story is made by witnessing it. The emotions they were pushed into by the weird tragedy, the relevance to their own lives... As always, set up for them to be changed by. To reflect on. To sit on the nose of the Impala and have a BM about it while sharing a beer. 

Because in the metanarrative now Yockey's saying, hey, this is now all episodes, really, if you think about it. You go back to an earlier season and you're going to see these things which are mirrors upon mirrors, the characters witnessing a parade of stories crafted specifically for them, to witness perfectly matched werewolves with the same issues they currently battle right at the time they need to see them to have the most emotional resonance...

-

Tee hee snark about how silly the "Equaliser"'s name is. So yeah once again we have a magic gun in play and Lilith is hired to scheme it out of them. Oh how season 3. 

-

I MISS BELA. BRING HER BACK TO HANDLE THIS. LILITH DIDN'T GET HER HANDS DIRTY ON THIS ONE.

-

Also much higher odds of seducing Dean I'd wager :P

-

Okay I took a break to play final fantasy and let my brain unspool a bit, and listening to The Shrieking Shack podcast, one of the hosts was going off on one about how the characters in Harry Potter book 7 espeically are just trapped in this Christian allegory which is destroying their characters and they don't even KNOW they are but they're being all twisted around to make them behave properly until their characterisation is literally backwards to where it started in book 1... Obviously started thinking about how Chuck as a bad writer is being portrayed as FORCING his characters to take part in allegory, and to make them do and say things which may be against their character but are supposed to deliver the message... 

But in Supernatural, even as far back as the early seasons, the characters had more savvy than that, and could out-perform the writers just in the sense that even random things like a writers' strike would force them to ACTUALLY send Dean to Hell instead of Sam going evil right then and there, all the way through the story, like, Cas being written off, then being brought back in season 7 and how it makes season 7 actually really well-written and bookended with Cas stuff if you take it on a death of the author stance that intent doesn't matter that Cas was never gonna come back when they wrote the opening episodes - once the writers tidied that up at the end of the season the stuff they did to send Cas off necessarily but unexpectedly forced the story to become something very different. And then at the same time you have season 4's conclusion with it being written directly in where Chuck tells Cas that he's not in this part and so on. Supernatural has always been extremely good at improvising, rolling with the good and the bad, and coming up with new storylines to handle what they decide maybe way belatedly was the better way to write the story, or maybe after only seeing Misha in a couple of episodes, decide the Castiel role has to be much larger than they originally planned. Obviously Cas since then has been a pillar of the show and really, every episode since the middle of season 4 has been a bit of a victory for Cas :P 

So of course the show has always had the mind to adapt and change and to let the story tell itself in some way, just so long as it's true to the characters. And the story has always been just about testing them to the limits of those characters, which has just given everyone involved a great idea of which ways they can push them in the next great upset. And then in the end, it seems like what had been obvious for a long time, the Destiel narrative, was just another of those things that they had to eventually roll with. 

Of course then this moment here where the story gets busted because they didn't do it right, and Chuck's trying to force another metaphorical mirror on them to tell them what to do, as he may have influenced them many times before through MotW allegories... The entire focus is on what is true to THEIR characters, that this whole thing felt weird and forced because the werewolf brothers escalated their drama to murder-suicide in seconds and then it went quiet for Sam and Dean to reflect in Chuck's "see???!!!" that they refused to see, so they just think it was super weird. Even before Ashley slipped and the game was up, Sam and Dean were more stunned than moved, like in the really good episodes where the story is so personal they can't help but get invested. 

Maybe it was just Lilith's delivery of setting it all up so quickly, making it very easy to find the werewolves, and making each step of the mystery instantly solveable so that she could rush them to the big finale. 

A very obvious commentary on how you can't just write these scenes out of nowhere, it takes the belief in the characters and the trust of the audience and they have to walk them there in a way that makes sense and connects all the way through. Maybe even this particular ploy failed simply because the emotional fallout for Sam and Dean was still so instantly baffled rather than moved that they just weren't in the headspace to be manipulated. I guess because they're easier to mess with when the stakes are so high to them, a la Mystery Spot.

-

Lilith giving creative notes on Chuck's writing being easy and rubbish is so funny.

-

Er

Bearing in mind that Destiel is about to go canon in a few episodes, when she snarks about Sam pulling out the ole Ruby's Knife and then she looks at Dean who has an angel blade in his sleeve and is like "you upgraded" and he's like "you have no idea"

is that a thing? 

-

I mean that's a thing, yeah.

Because back in season 4 Ruby and Cas were played off each other as Sam and Dean's hell and heaven counterparts, except a little break where Dean banged Anna so it wouldn't be gay for him to have that EXACT parallel with what Sam and Ruby had been getting up to. But like. Now we have someone who was around back in the day looking at Sam pulling out the knife she would remember as Ruby's better than pretty much any other character except Sam and Dean themselves by now, and then she looks at Dean and... there's a lot of symbolism about who Sam and Dean are and the journeys they've been on in those two knives. Just that of the two of them, in this moment when it's actually commented on, Dean isn't the one with the demon knife, he's the one with the angel blade in his sleeve. Doesn't even matter that it's presumably not Cas's... Or that Cas left him in a huff last episode or the one before... the one before, I think. Whoops. Anyway, doesn't matter, Dean is still identified in contrast to Sam in this moment of recontextualising and remembering the knife as Ruby's and what that all means when Lilith is in the room. And then we look at Dean. And he has an angel blade. And says she has no idea what he's been up to in the intervening time.

-

Anyway they forgot Lilith has that white light spell throwing people around.

-

Aw. Sammy knocked out immediately.

Dean immediately leaps in to bargain once she's about to attack Sam. Even though before and now after she's clarifying that she can't kill them. I guess leaping in to save Sam from fate worse than death, and she immediately makes it weird and creepy about Dean when she's working out what she can get from this arrangement if not being able to kill them.

-

The other thing is.

Sam is immune to her white light spell thingy, at least as far as being hurt by it? Unless him being thrown was an indication that she could affect him at all ergo it could also hurt him?

Anyway. Dean being a bit hasty there, but then, Lilith is a nemesis they never truly beat, since she won by dying at them. Which means they've never actually, like, had a plan that worked against her. She delivered a hell of a lot of devastating blows to them, so it would make sense that Dean would sort of lose a bit of his swagger from the last dozen years since then and go back to being pretty easy to spook about having her in the room. 

-

Oh hey is this a tables turned demon!Dean dream that Sam is having? Maybe Chuck is really hashing out the different ways the brothers have/could/will kill each other so now Dean is no longer the victim here, Sam is, and in the end it doesn't matter because he just friggin wants them to fratricide each other already. 

Aside from wanting to do the stunt of flinging one of them off the balcony at last, it's funny that they're fighting in the war room of the bunker, and not having this mark of cain Dean beat down in the same spot that Dean did it to Cas. Like, this has to take place in their home but we already boxed off the library for mark of cain Dean and Cas in 10x22 so don't go messing with that, because it's not supposed to cross over with Sam and Dean stuff. 

-

Pretty sure these are their 10x03 clothes as well, though. I would say that it's great they have such clothing continuity but then they literally used the same jackets and plaids in combo for at least 9 years of the show so they could re-use some random shots of them like going into houses or setting graves on fire with a filter and the image flipped. So of course they'd still have all the classics on file, just in case they were going to use a shot of Sam running from 10x03 because they were too lazy to make Jared run down a hall but not too lazy to fish out the same shirt and make him wear it for a whole episode just so they could do that :P

-

And yet they'll pay the money to hire the actor who played demon!Dean to come back for a few seconds.

Wild.

-

(this is a comment on how different he is like this, I do know it's still Jensen :P)

-

Kinda fun to see these versions all play out. That fratriciding was especially teased for seasons and never happened.

-

Now Lilith is riding shotgun in the Impala. Die a villain or live long enough to see yourself uncomfortably working with a Winchester.

-

Love how she's just as uncomfortable about it, but does admit she picked this vessel because Ashley's hair was the nicest, confirming my earlier theory, I guess.

I mean. They were all blonde. Whatever.

-

Now she's ranting about how she had a good villain death and she should have stayed put because, you know, narratively she accomplished all her goals, and to date she and Ruby are the only villains in the show to get the job done, get killed in glory and triumph, and never have their legacy tarnished in a Hallucifer way.

Even if she's like, I did all this to get Lucifer raised, and it's like, girl, if you only knew what he was like in later seasons, you'd never have bothered.

-

"You went and screwed it all up" directly being called out for not doing the story right. And now God is punishing them for not doing it right, and picking out an old friend who would be exactly as pissed as he is, from the old season 4 days when the story had some sort of narrative integrity to the Original Narrative, or at least a duct taped together version that worked for what they wanted. Got Lucifer raised, kicked off the prize fight, what does it matter what nonsense happened in between, right? In that respect, Lucifer, Michael, Lilith, Zachariah and God were all on the same team, hence TFW needing to go rogue in the first place.

-

... in the style of potter puppet pals Ron Weasley: "and Crowley!" 

-

the little baby girl Lilith voice still sucks 10 years later

-

She repeats the "wouldn't it be great if everything is planned out for you" line to Dean, I think just so he can give it the eye roll he wanted to back when he thought she was an innocent bystander to the cosmic nonsense.

-

Lilith complaining about Chuck's speech on his writing philosophy reminds me directly of 9x18 and 9x22 and how Gadreel was visibly turning on Metatron almost precisely because the endless creative writing lessons were so awful and telling of who he was really working for. 

Metatron did try to emulate Chuck in everything... Turns out he was better at it than even we thought.

-

Lol Chuck having a pervy obsession with Dean. Okay so kind of weird and uncomfortable to put it like that, but villain voices can give us some truths that can't be explored in other ways. Having to account for the Winchester Gospels means addressing every question raised and not answered in the past about if Chuck really was God then - 

in this case, the whole "full frontal in here" thing, where it may have been more of a fandom joke over all this time, but really thinking about it, Chuck writing intimate details about Dean that upset him with how graphic it was and how much of a violation is a strong example of the feeling as a whole that anyone could relate to. Like, Dean's basically been hacked and doxxed and had his nudes leaked as far as he's concerned, and the guy who did it turns out to be God? 

Throw in Chuck's behaviour in 11x22 where he was wearing Dean's robe and annoying him by spending too long in the shower and generally lounging around indulging in Dean things from food to his porn, then, yeah, Chuck formed a strong attachment to Dean in particular when it came to the intimacies and personality. The finale last season was rough for everyone but it bullied Dean into the central role.

Let me be a bit more galaxy brain here than I think people could have been when this was airing: if Chuck is pissed with Dean in particular, we do know Cas is the annoying variable who is madly in love with Dean for the whole of his time on the show now apparently. Which means that it seems like what has made Cas so obsessed with Dean is driving Chuck mad that THIS, being into Dean, is in the end what helped unravel everything so spectacularly for him. So while Sam is the butt of the cosmic joke when it came to the plotline for opening Hell, unleashing Lucifer and becoming his vessel, while Dean's role was somewhat to the side of that, to merely help push and pull Sam to that place by accident, then dutifully go fight him as Michael, the somehow more cosmically boring brother ended up being the one to flip the table because he didn't like being a game piece on it. And took Cas with him. And now Chuck is "pervily" obsessed with this whole thing, I guess trying to understand it, I guess so he can win. And not being able to account for the Destiel variable... well, it's the most wild card thing the show had, the thing most against its original design and aesthetic and everything, but the thing that ended up being brought to the fore as a truly miraculous twist of TV history. And the show having to come to terms with what Destiel is, what it means, if it IS just fan girls obsessed with the two of them having sex... or if it's a deep and meaningful story built over a decade and genuinely filled with love and a rare bonding arc for any story really, just because it was so ships tossy on a stormy sea messy in story and out of story... 

it's extremely reasonable for the real life world to be like "how the fuck did this happen" and for the story itself to represent that feeling in Chuck sizing out what the hell is so attractive about Dean and this suggestion that his interest is "pervy" might misrepresent Chuck's intent somewhat in that I don't think he's like, just doing this because he's hot for Dean (although of course Chuck is canonically bisexual), but because as God this is some sort of power of love bullshit that seems to be stronger than he is and he doesn't like that. And that interest breeds fascination and when it's about something as personal as this, obviously quickly crosses into rather creepy territory.

-

How to have your God character be a vindicating bisexual win for TV representation 4 years ago and now he's homophobic dad disapproving of a relationship but maybe also he's secretly a bit gay for his son's bf at the same time and hates himself for it. 

-

The Lilith complains about Chuck's fratricide obsession. 

she would have a huge binder of ideas for how else to end the world, and instead it's like, NO IT HAS TO BE FRATRICIDE. 

She's so bored of this, give her a rain of blood any day :P 

-

Then she's like "OH I JUST HAD A TEXTUAL ANALYSIS REVELATION" with the thought that THAT was why Chuck wanted them to see the werewolf diorama. She's realising in real time it's a metaphor for the brothers, or a message to tell them what is coming to them. 

I suppose if she was supposed to sneak in, set that up, sleep with Dean, steal the magic gun (huh, kinda like the mixtape empty space where Cas gets the magic gun from under Dean's pillow), and leave without them ever knowing she had been there, it would have been sort of a divine message, like, I guess that kind of religious allegory is how people interpret god's will in the world anyway. She was just a demon ex machina going around making it happen on God's behalf, but it's still essentially the sort of messaging that if God did communicate through mysterious happenings, would be on brand?

-

So being told this is foreshadowing is pretty much also directly telling the audience that the show will not end with Sam and Dean killing each other, and if the description I've seen of 15x19 are correct and it's essentially the end of the show minus one episode, and Sam and Dean made it through this alive without killing each other, then yeah. I guess that bore out :P 

-

"be a good boy and show me that big gun, huh?" Dean is like, belatedly remembering that she said "Deal" and she seals a deal with sex? Anyway. Gross. 

-

Oh, I guess I am completely vindicated in my read that 4x18 was a test and God was figuring out Sam and Dean up close and personal, and then this episode is a mirror to it in a way, at least now we're here. There's no prophecy now, just foreshadowing, which is supposedly a more immutable force than mere fate. One's bullshit in-universe that you can do what you want with. One's a metatextual thing that's gonna pay off or it will be bad writing! Gasp!

-

It is season 15 and Dean is still telling demons to go to Hell.

-

Death by 1000 cuts is also very on brand for what Chuck has been doing to them. Sure, there haven't been 1000 episodes but idk throw in some of those tuesdays and Hell time or whatever and you can make up the difference.

-

See, Lilith, Dean just did the trick on you where you did the stupid werewolves taking you back to their lair... Dean took you back to HIS lair, so Sammy would know where to find you. 

And Sammy carries a lot of guns. One of them's gonna be the devil trap gun :'D

But yeah, gloating she can make the torture last forever is very stupid when she is forgetting that there's 2 brothers. As they often do. Of course Dean did that very deliberately. I think the last time a villain very blatantly did that was the Sam's Organs Nearly Get Sold On The Monster Blackmarket episode, so it was Dean's turn to get rescued. But he manufactured it far more than Sam, who was barely even empowered to buy time. While Dean had this under lock as soon as he stepped in to bargain for Sam's life. 

-

Sam throws the "we upgraded!" thing back at Lilith very innocently, compared to the comment he's reflecting back at her. Bless his heart for missing the subtext entirely and just finding a cool zinger.

Better than telling a demon to go to hell. Dean. 

-

Loving the concept that he's mocking her that he just needs bandaids after her treatment, but also remember that in 4x18 part of the prophecy was him being covered in cute bandaids. Now he's saying, cute, all I need is bandaids.

-

Honestly poor Abaddon and Lilith, it's so humiliating to be devil trap bullet'd. 

-

She manages to heal it out of her head, I guess in the same way that the other most powerful demons have laughed at attempts to trap them. I mean that's old games the show does - back in the season 1 finale Meg was gloating about being cool enough to walk in a church, never mind the belated run down of what yellow eyed demons are and aren't allergic to we got when they were reintroduced in Dabb era. Abaddon might not have been able to do that trick but Lilith is the First Demon so it's maybe just amazing she could be held up in the first place.

-

Listen, based on the average idiot demon they meet, keeping the gun in Baby's glove compartment was a completely sensible decision. See above: First Demon. Lilith is actually allowed to be smart :P

-

I am glad the show keeps turning all the super powerful guns into molten goo to keep the story interesting. 

-

Oh wow, so she's just out there in the world now? That's not going to be a great time for them. I mean, based on historical precedent of how well they handled her being out in the world last time :P 

-

Eurgh the broment is Sam trying to contact Cas and Cas not answering and Dean knowing immediately what Sam was doing and asking like he doesn't know Cas isn't talking to him because he's the worst and was horrible to Cas. 

Dean, shut up and call him yourself and leave one heck of an answerphone message. 

-

Maybe ask Sam how his mental health is holding up knowing Lilith is out and about.

-

OH right yeah they thought Chuck was gone and so this was sort of a surprise to them that they were being fucked with still. Er, that was way too optimistic of you but I guess it was your coping mechanism. Just pretend there's no big bad, immediately after not solving the thing with the big bad earlier. 

And Sam's had his weird shoulder wound acting up giving him freaky visions into Chuck's drafting process like, duh.

Guess Lilith should have told Sam not Dean about Chuck's fratricide obsession... Hope the two of them communicate between episodes if this doesn't get explored now because I sure hate when characters have two parts of the puzzle and don't tell each other so they never figure out why everything sucks until too late...

-

And, you know. Take active measures not to fratricide each other, I guess.

-

I guess Area Man Loses Additional Bit Of Hope He Didn't Know He Still Had is an important mindset to put them in right now, especially as it was how Dean coped for the last two episodes, to even go out there and do anything, after the shock to the system he had with the Chuck reveal. 

He's still sounding out the reality they're in like saying it to Sam will confirm or deny it because in his own head he can't latch onto the concept alone, so the whole time between then and now, which apparently included a long drive, shower and medical care, he hasn't really dealt with it.

-

Oh good, Dean is sharing his half of it, anyway. 

"Well, that's not happening."

Oh good, Sam is sharing!

Oh my god fifteen seasons and they can finally communicate vital plot information to each other.

Dean is annoyed it took Sam this long. Sam says he thought it was PTSD, which is entirely fair in the sense that this is probably what both of their bad dreams look like at times. 

But at the same time, it's sad that Sam didn't think talking this out with Dean would help?? Or be necessary???

I think you've both been bottling up way too many fratricide incidents, so let's start at Mystery Spot and when you accidentally killed Dean with an axe off-screen that one time, and work your way up to 10x03 via every messed up murder attempt. Not going to be pretty but when you hug it out at the end, you'll feel great.

-

Trust me, I'm a doctor.

-

At least Sam finally starts to grapple with the nature of their drafted universe. And his weird link with Chuck that's letting him see the cosmic typewriter.

-

Dean takes this all as well as you'd expect. Especially given it's basically season 2 but on steroids, with his existential dread and Something Is Wrong With Sammy.

-

Also the fear about what if we get boring.

No more rubbish vampire and werewolf cases, we have to be high octane all the time.

-

A good trap to set might be to fake having a huge brother blow up, both go buy a ton of knives and baseball bats with nails in for their prize fight, go a round or two for fun in a brother wrestling way, then turn around and grab Chuck, where he's watching with his popcorn.

Of course this does depend on them knowing what to do with him next but I can workshop it.

-

Anyway Sam wants to fight, I'll go sit at his table and we can work this out.

-

Dean pissed about not knowing how to fight God, when in fact the greatest asset they have in this fight is Cas and specifically Cas wanting to smooch Dean all the time since he met him. And of course Dean's sent Cas away and we zoom out on Sam and Dean sitting alone at that table with no family left around them, no resources, no clue what to do...

They need their family. And Dean needs to make up with Cas already! dang! I spent months and months in bed with a migraine while they were in this fight and it's not been fun to think about!

-

Good thing as of, again, 16th November 2020, I know exactly how this goes for them aka Cas is in Super Hell and the show ended last episode even though there's still another one to air. Based on what everyone's saying online and I've given up avoiding spoilers of that magnitude :P 

-

Obviously I can tell I'm in for a wiiild ride to get from here to there.

-

I do feel bad this was Yockey's last episode still. Even with the twist and the cosmic exploration of the nature of the show and unpacking it to the very bare bones to explore what makes it the show and how its whole structure and plot work and we, Sam and Dean, the writers, God, the general audience, idk, the network suits, interact with this thing... All that packed in... it was kinda sad in a way it wasn't as much of a romp as his episodes usually are. 

I mean, extraordinarily heavy lifting. Literally hefting canon onto his back in a sack like the giant that carries the universe around (er, I hope that's a reference people know? I don't even know where I know it from at this point :P) but at the same time, the actual happenings of this episode were so thin because it was a deliberately fast and bad motw followed by a deconstruction of the show that would make a hipster restaurant proud... but mostly involved a lot of talking... that it was more of a thesis than an episode. 

And like, nerdy!me loves the thesis. 

dorky!me who kinda just wants to watch Some Nonsense was not as well fed. Ah well. 

I'm sure Yockey is off being spectacular elsewhere, and I'm sure that Destiel being canon is at least somewhat on a foundation involving bricks he laid, in the story and in the writers' room I'd hope and assume. Would be a bit weird if he was opposed. Pfft. 

maybe it's just sad that he leaves on such a helpless note for Sam and Dean, since obviously this is just tearing them all the way down to the bone when it comes to their chances and understanding what the stakes really are. Even if he left after a last MotW towards the end of the season, usually those are geared towards actually, like... building to a hopeful suggestion of how victory may be achieved. Or how a plan is moving along. Or revealing SOMETHING worthwhile in that fight... 

Sigh.

Fare thee well etc.


	6. 15x06

15x06 watching notes

No way I'll catch up before the end but damned if I don't put in an effort suddenly and unexpectedly on the Monday of the week of the finale.

-

How dare they make me rewatch the Dean n Cas fight.

CAS CANONICALLY LOVES DEAN AND THEY PUT HIM THROUGH THIS???

-

I have lost all track of who is writing anything, and we're doing Rowena related stuff this episode it seems, so my first guess would have been Yockey except he did last episode, and Buckleming except the minute I've watched as this witch trashes her apartment seems to be good TV.

Guessing this witch is not long for the world. 

Good luck finding the Book of the Damned here.

-

I want that portrait if Rowena isn't using it any more.

-

LOL she's already dying. Rowena doesn't mess around. 

-

Oh yeah re: bloody tear last episode, also the attack dog spell was a VERY messy one, and I guess I was right, Ashley turned out to be Lilith so she was lying about something fundamental! Hooray!

I'm going faster than normal, no time for rereading for hindsight cookies!

Also, you know. What is the point in trying to be right about anything when you've been right about canon Destiel so you're legally and technically right about everything forever from now on.

-

Uhoh, Sam's reading The Edlundian Times, where FACTS are stranger than FICTION. 

Some, er, suspect stories in his browser, also on the Atlas Mysteria. Top quality news organisations, the lot of them.

Baby parts lake superior? I guess that could be a nod to Jack and his miracles. And biblical big nonsense. I doubt this happened even in the sense of like, the SPN world having constant actual biblical big nonsense going down. Some things just seem fake. 

Mary on the three cheese pizza obviously is just there to make me sad about Sam's lovely dream of the family dinner for his birthday where they all got together and no one was imminently about to die. Hahaha. Ha.

-

Going back to my Table Bullshit, because, er, I guess that's something I can still offer even when Destiel is canon, Sam's sitting in his usual spot but also one that seems uniquely marked for sad moping around, lonely research, and generally being a miserable fucker with your back to the door.

-

So was that a visual distortion I was meant to see or was that the extremely low quality illegal stream I'm watching? I was looking at the Kevin coffee machine and having a moment of sad nostalgia, then there was a spooky sort of noise, and Sam looked around and there was a sort of thing there maybe? But also the compression distortion is ENORMOUS on this video, enough that you could probably spot a ghost anywhere by those rules.

-

Dean has hotdog jammies. He's the worst and I hate him but also my heart just grew three sizes then melted away. He's reading the back of a cereal box, so i guess he is in deep deep denial and has repressed all his angst from last episode by now. 

Just cram it all in there like a suitcase for a two week break in Majorca. 

-

"What's round and bad tempered? - A vicious circle"

I feel like that was a self-own given that you literally just had a conversation last episode about Chuck wanting you to keep going with the whole fratricide thing.

-

GUEST STARRING

SHO -

SHOSHANNAH STERN??FKLSHFLFHSFLKHF

Sammy is gonna get married this episode and he has no idea. 

-

Dean came in holding Cocoa Crunch, went for another box, and took down Ancient Grains instead.

A bit more fitting his taste in angels at least? :/

-

Aw bless he's been watching Scooby Doo.

Look, he's an asshole who was horrible to Cas, but he sucks at dealing with his own feelings let alone anyone else's and even when he's being the Worst he's still adorable and cuddly and there's a part of me that will always be like "aww adorable cuddly Dean" no matter how much of a garbage person he is.

I mean there's literally a racoon on the box of cocoa crunch, that he ate all of, and I'm still feeling like "good for you" just because I want him to feel okay even for a moment >.>

Maybe he feels so attached to the Scooby gang even knowing the ones in the cartoon he watches aren't real in the way we'd understand it, but, like, they're REAL, Scoob. He's hung out with them!

He can get the same comfort from fictional characters I do seeing him in that robe even when he's being objectively rubbish because he chased Cas out and is engaging in coping mechanisms which are only great because he's not drunk.

-

Ahahaha Dean just ate the Ancient Grains and made a horrified face and reached for the sugary cereals. Bless him. 

-

GASP it's CASTIEL ON MY SCREEN. 

Hello you ridiculous gay angel, I've missed you. 

-

Okay so he's been apparently actually fishing. 

I'm just going to go set myself on fire, brb.

-

I 

-

They did name drop Edlund I guess so 

-

I hope Edlund is proud of Cas for coming out and telling Dean he loved him... Haven't heard any congratulatory tweets from there :P 

-

God I am not paying any attention to the meagre things happening on screen because I feel like I just got beaten up by all my Cas feelings and now I have to go back and work out what the heck is going on. 

I mean Cas is wandering around calling himself Clarence, he's obviously tried at some point to distance himself emotionally and yet despite the name choice he found himself apparently earnestly fishing? 

There's a less than 0 chance he's doing something weird and angel-y with all the fishing gear he's picking up and it's for some odd ... ritual? Idk what he'd be doing. Scoping this place out because it's opposite the sheriff station? But he could also just be fishing and trying to be chill. 

-

"Bait working out good" does make me assume he's on a case or something though, trying to be hunter!Cas to fill the void. Because that's exactly the sort of line that gets said at you when you're actually baiting a vampire or something and irony points are needed. 

-

On the other hand he seems to have... opinions... about fishing, and how relaxing it is and how bad at it he is. Has he really Gone Fishin' when he stormed out on Dean?

What a fucking power move, Cas. 

-

I love him a lot. A lot a lot.

-

Hooray, it is Meredith!

-

Cas maybe actually genuinely was fishing and gets a tip off on a monster case from his bait guy.

This is some next level ridiculousness I love it I want 100.

-

Sam is jogging! A thing we have only ever heard of! 

He's not even listening to music? 

Oh no he's haunted oh no -

OH NO IT IS HER, this is the woooorst.

-

And to get a glimpse of the Kevin coffee machine before she first appeared... Sam's ghost family. He's gonna live in a ghost house with ghost wife and ghost adopted son Kevin and it's going to be extremely chilly there but he won't complain because he feels guilty and messed up about their deaths.

hahahaa. I love the concept.

(I don't)

-

OH NO SHE GOT DRAGGED TO HELL??? THIS IS SO UNFAAAAIR.

I'm glad she's back, er. Somewhat. God, are they allowed a permanent ghost Eileen to live here? Will Sam try to make out with her and it's weird because she has no corporeal form so his tongue goes right through?

-

Oh so Sam says nothing when Dean pisses Cas off so much he takes a long fishing trip, but Dean says one insensitive thing about ghosts from hell not having a chance in hell of going to heaven to Eileen, and Sam's mad now? :P 

-

I forgot how terrible at problem solving the boys are. Give them a dose of existential doom and the best they can come up with is "I don't know, trap your ghost wife in a pokeball?"

And then no one can think of a better idea so Sam's actually going to drive off and try and do this. I guess. 

I hope NOT though because obviously Rowena's, er, concerned neighbour from the cold open will be there. Man it would suck if Sam just pokeballed Eileen and they all moved on with their lives. 

-

Dean is too miserable to help, though. He's embracing the eat nothing but cereal and watch TV life. I guess if he's wildly out of shape and will have a heart attack with too much physical exercise then he's giving Sam better odds next time he chases him through the Bunker with a hammer.

-

Very tactical mind, that Dean

-

Do I recognise this woman talking to Cas because she was on SPN as a bit part a long time ago or do I recognise her from the endless loop of actors in the Canadian wilds on all the same shows? She has a familiar face.

-

Cas having to think fast and work out the most convenient lies to not get himself in trouble, comes up with being on vacation which if he is genuinely renting a cabin and fishing in his time, which I still feel like I need to see to believe, but is somehow weirdly nice to believe for him. 

When has Cas ever had a break in his entire existence? Like a real honest to god sit down and do nothing all day BREAK.

he deserves it. fuck you Dean!

(I can say that because he's not currently on screen distracting me by being cute at the same time as being garbage)

-

Oh Sam and Eileen, break my heart some more :<

"I hate this for you" YEAH, you guys should be MARRIED. 

-

Oh god, Sam talking openly about Hell with her, because she relaaaaates. She's been there :( 

"Not yet" But they're going to put her in a POKEBALL.

OH GOD THEN SAM SIGNS TO HER 

Oh Eileen he was the perfect husband for you :<

-

"After we met I started practicing again" "I guess I'm a bit stuck" 

He looooves her :'( 

-

This is actual torture. My hell is watching Sam not get his perfect wife over and over and over, from Sarah in season 1 right through to having to stab Rowena mere episodes before THIS nonsense. 

-

Rowena having mail building up around her door is sad but also kinda funny that she was getting packages sent to her. I mean I guess she shops like everyone else, I just imagined she'd have a more magical and/or bloody way of getting all her cool shit. 

I suppose you can't furnish your goth apartment with all the best spooky stuff if you have to murder your way to ALL of it, sometimes Amazon has to do, and you accept you're only partaking in the same ethical evils as everyone who's forced to use the service.

-

I'M SORRY IS THE IMPLICATION THAT THAT MOVING VAN IS FURNISHED THAT GOTH JUST FOR THOSE WITCHES TO HAVE A STAKE OUT LOCATION BEFITTING THEIR JOB?

I mean 

Witches are like, 90% aesthetic in this show anyway, hence Sam being literally Rowena's apprentice magician as far as most people are concerned at this point having done so much magic with her, but because he won't order 3 tons of spooky crap off Amazon and keep his room in the bunker permanently lit with candles resting on top of skulls, he's not legally a witch. 

I guess if a bunch of witches are staking out Rowena's place looking for the guy who has the Book of the Damned in a drawer in his library then they're not going to just sit in the back of a U-haul on a crate while scrying in a used coffee cup.

-

Eileen immediately like "great" when realising that they also are looters in Rowena's home and this dead witch is also someone who came here to find stuff, and while Rowena may have actually WANTED to help Sam in life, she sure has a room full of magical boobytraps she's not around to defuse now...

-

SHE HAS A LAMP WHICH IS A GOLDEN RAM SKULL

SO FUCKIN EXTRA I LOVE HER 

-

I want to shop where RoRo shops.

-

I am now convinced the woman in the sheriff station is a SPN returnee but it's still driving me mad the next morning that I don't know where, because I feel like I can SEE her in a random screenshot in my brain from this show. I know it's ultimately meaningless, it's just bugging me :P

-

Anyway Cas is lovely because he came in to ask questions about one thing but now he's just agitating on her behalf to the sheriff. 

-

"I mean... not locals" that is the most ominous thing you could have said. I mean, I just immediately assume you have a Scarecrow like human sacrifice situation going on and you're putting Cas at the top of your list.

-

Assuming he genuinely was just fishing in the area because that's adorable and also kills me, Cas stumbling into a case like this has such like, season 1 Winchester vibes that I also wouldn't be surprised if that happened to him just because he's so sweetly treading their old ground in his hunter training. 

Everyone has to do the thing where they split off from the group, get in with weird locals, and end up nearly sacrificed for the sake of good pie. Call yourself a hunter, otherwise?

-

Cas's tecnique is SO GOOD now, though. Like, the fact he's just asking normal questions and knowing when to demand to look at the body... I mean. He's acting like a confident white man in an authority position and not a space alien. It's amazing. 

-

Paused to type that and noticed one hell of a weird like... sigil... on the sheriff patch on the guy's shoulder. Maybe that sort of iconography is normal for small town sheriffs, maybe it's a town-wide murder cult. 

-

OH NO Cas being so confident but then being challenged for a supervisor to talk to

and he knows who that has to be

I mean in his mind he went "I can stall, resurrect Bobby, get him set up at a phone or - UGH fine, I'll give him Dean's fake FBI number."

And for the first time his expression drops a little into fear and knowing he's now got to Interact With Dean, even indirectly. 

Like, he's got to have faith Dean won't fuck him over on a case for the sake of the poor dead children, right?? 

-

I guess it's more in the defeat that he's the one who walked out on Dean in a fit of self-reliance and self-care, but now even if it's as simple business where he isn't even the one who may have to TALK to Dean, for a work thing, there's still just an element of crawling back.

-

Of course Dean is still in his stupid pyjamas. Is this the longed-for episode where Dean gets to spend the whole thing in jammies?

I've been agitating for that since the cluedo episode early season 10 where Dean complained we were all lucky he hadn't shown up in pants with an elasticated waist and I was just like yesssss you do you, wear those tracksuit pants all day!

-

POOR CAS IS IN LOVE WITH DEAN CANONICALLY IN THIS SCENE AND HAS TO LISTEN TO HIS FBI VOICE WAFTING THROUGH THE PHONE 

Like just. Hearing your crush's voice from afar and recognising every intimate memorised detail of it, so even a crackly distant glimpse of it gives you those butterflies

but you're also an angel with super-hearing and also your crush is a fucking idiot you walked out on but you also cosmically love him because you yourself are an idiot. 

-

I'm so glad I get to watch this scene knowing Destiel is canon, because there would have been a whole lot of helpless flailing about what is even going on here setting Cas up to be in this situation where he has to rely on Dean while Sam's separated out with HIS hapless love story with poor dead Eileen. Like, Dean and Sam are both at these low ebbs and

Oh my god Sam and Eileen are going canon aren't they?

-

I mean I figured she wasn't going in a pokeball because that's awful but how do you get her back??? 

-

Whoops I am sad about Sam and Eileen in the middle of a Destiel moment.

Look, those fuckers are canon and I know it, so the urgency of understanding this scene and its motivations is somewhat dimmed. I'm finding new things to freak out about :P

-

"Put my agent on the phone please" oh come on Dean, you did not have to do that, you could have just said he had your full authorisation to knock heads together. hang up, and go back to Scooby Doo. 

You just wanna hear Cas's voice, admit it.

-

If you are mean to him I will reach through the screen and smack you upside the head.

-

*annoyed Cas huffing noise*

I will miss his full body eye roll when all is over.

-

I know he's literally in front of the sheriff and can't get this wrong but at the same time, no "hello DEAN", just a plain "hello" is the wooooorst. 

-

Dean leads with "Sam's been trying to call you" which obviously shifts the feelings to Sammy, a thing he has been doing his entire on-screen career as a way of deflecting stuff he don't want to feel. Like, he would WANT to be calling Cas and trying to get back in contact with him but this break up obviously is his fault and he knows not to do that but he also has to say immediately that they were worried about Cas and Sam being an innocent bystander to this is a great excuse to convey this feeling.

Cas just like "I know," "nope" again, he's being watched by the sheriff but he MEANS the curtness in his words and in a way this framing allows/emphasises his feelings here.

-

Dean is a complete dick not to even ask to be handed back to the sheriff wooooowwww. Petty ex or what, Cas?

Fortunately Cas's skills are now about as good as anyone's could be in this scenario, and he knows how to fake up the end of the conversation and stick the landing like a boss, getting access to the files he wants without needing to bluster through anything. 

Maybe it was just learning that while angelic fury can't always work with the amount of earnestness he brought to the table, his vessel as a while middle aged man is really far more powerful at just sounding like he knows what he's doing and he gets what he wants :P

-

SELF HELP BOOKS?

Rowena.... Sam thinks it's disappointing junk but it's very telling. Of course he pulls out the Death card (never what it feels like on the surface) but along with its message of change a self-help book focusses that lens on the personal and wanting to be a better person or to handle emotions better. Rowena openly addressed her grief and her trauma multiple times, and I suppose either realised she needed a bit of guidance beyond what random case of the week self-examination caused, or was able to have some of the clear-minded conversations with Sam that she did as a result of reading these books.

The fact that these were what she left behind though do indicate that she was on the cusp of change anyway, right before Sam killed her. You could take that as either her own read on herself, or Sam pulling the card as a reading in of itself, with its own commentary on Rowena from his perspective, and the eyes he brings to it trashing her place with his new-old-dead not quite girlfriend and the disappointment he's finding in Rowena's place lacking the mystique he expected.

-

I do think living in a bunker full of magical artefacts for NEARLY HALF THE SHOW has warped his expectations for what one should expect in a study now.

-

"Ta daaa!" Oh my god Eileen you dork.

Stop trying to charm him, you are a GHOST :(

-

Eileen being sensitive to Sam missing Rowena - what a conversation, when Sam kinda had a thing for Crowley's mum but also is in love with this ghostly hunter.

This is 

peak Sam Winchester

-

We tease him for all his girlfriends dying and now one of them is literally a ghost consoling him over the death of the one he just stabbed the other day!

-

"You ever feel like you're the punchline to some cosmic joke?"

er. Whoops. 

I guess me teasing Sam turns out to be deep meta commentary on Chuck's treatment of him and how he also is very aware in hindsight that God once smacked him around the head with a plunger.

-

NOOOOOOOO the failed hand-touch.

This is worse than Dean n Cas being miserable bastards about touching each other because she WANTS to touch him and CAN'T for REAL.

-

Dean is W E A K.

-

Sam's analysis of Rowena though - She knew the game was rigged, so magic was how she kept control. AND HOW. She was so powerful that in the end she was being dragged around by cosmic forces to get her to do this or that other spell or killing her to STOP her doing spells. She put herself out on the chessboard as a QUEEN in a world of slow-moving kings, dammit.

/sexism commentary that kinda makes no sense but then on the other hand the show's male character ratio is grossly unbalanced so am I wrong

-

Aww, a page just fell out... My guess: 

"Dear Sam, by the time you read this I'll be dead. Here's how I think it will happen..."

Hmmmm whatcha saaay.

-

Ohhh no it's much better than that. 

... WITCH SAM WITCH SAM WITCH SAM

If he's smart enough to do Rowena's magic then he's just a witch who doesn't fuck around doing spells for aesthetic and clout, but that doesn't mean he's any less of a witch, and I will fight anyone who disagrees that Sam should legally register as a witch at this point :P

-

Wait is Sam going to have the hope to bring Eileen back and actually DO it 

and now I know that at the end of the season Cas is going to get dragged to Super Hell (I know I know I'm just quoting the memes) and this isn't going to be a thing that maybe the boys just deserve to bring back their loves because, you know. It's season 15, cut them some slack for once.

-

I can't wait to go to Sam's wedding. 

-

OH right Cas is a dad to a Youth, or at least was a dad to a baby who looked like a young man and so doing this investigation for the sake of lost children is important to him and really sad aurgh. 

TBH Jack coming back is something I was spoiled on a zillion years ago but also something that was deeply obvious and I never really doubted, so it's just the entire surrounding reasons for that that I want to know. 

Did make me momentarily forget that Jack wasn't, like, back at the cabin fishing with Cas.

-

Cas took his cooooat off to doooo this. His ole thing about having it off and on again in season 9 and occasionally 10 I believe(?) where his Look which I think never changed in terms of being seen in the coat when he was not actively dressed up as something else before that point, now he starts to get a bit loose with it... By these later Dabb era seasons he has taken it off a few times just for comfort when working especially on doing hunter-y cases and every time he does it it kills me a bit.

Honestly just him sort of realising that the way Jimmy dressed him before he left is not like, the Human Skin he must always inhabit but finding the individual parts of his clothes mean something and can be removed separately if he wanted to like, take his shoes off and put his toes in the river while fishing. that sort of thing :P A human thing we rather take for granted to want to take a coat off that restricts our arms when we lean over a desk or something. 

Anyway, just more of Cas being very comfortable in his own real skin and turning into a competent person, hunter, and hero :'D

-

Sam has a moment of hope and then immediately starts coughing up blood.

Honestly don't know if it's Chuck messing with him or normal things.

Narratively, I'd say Chuck :P 

Maybe he put these other witches in their pimped out Witch Van here right on time to ruin Sam's life.

-

SAM USING SIGNS TO TELL EILEEN HOW SHE CAN HEEEEEELP

WAAAAAAAAH I LVOE THEM 

-

Did he really keep practicing even after she died just on the HOPE that she'd be part of the roster of randos from their life they routinely see again as ghosts or visions or whatever? Like, if he happened to be in Heaven for some other plot reason but met her in passing, he wanted to impress her with the signs.

Dedication, guys.

-

Oh, loved that shot of Sam leaning against the car with his reflection all distorted across her side. Brilliant.

Obviously fandom has gone over and over reflection imagery, but to show his in their home car, which has just been used to hex him (and he was such a smart cookie to find the hex bags so quickly) with his mirror self positioned like that, just emphasises the betrayal of using Baby that way I guess. Or shows some sort of sense of his home space a little stretched and wobbly right now. Whatever it means, it's Sam's mirror being a little off-kilter from normal.

-

Keep 'er Movin' "you GO we PACK"

I have no idea if the van has any specific symbolic relevance, but that is a funny slogan regardless. 

"'er" in particular, obviously is "her" and while I guess it's a regular enough saying in a way, the "her" presumably refers to your own car or the van itself doing the moving - either because you are free to head off while the company promises safe hands to pack for you, or the implication the van is doing the hard work for you. 

Also makes me think this should be a moving company van and not a rental like U-Haul which is the antithesis of this, where you take the van from the company and do all the hard work yourself and then return their movable storage space to them after. 

Dunno why I'm lingering on this so much. Maybe just because unlike the Edlundian Times or whatever it was, it doesn't feel like an in joke so much as a message thrown at us, and I'm curious about if it can convey anything more than making me briefly smile at the amusing tone it strikes...

-

Omg the witch basically revealing to Sam that he has Rowena's last will and testament just because he won't be hexed to death just for going into her house and poking through her stuff. 

I'm cry.

She'd have had to set that up long before Sam killed her. I guess maybe after she heard that he was the only one who could do it, and she began thinking long term about what that meant for their relationship. 

Maybe just assuming that based on its trajectory that she'd be his master and he'd learn witchery from her one day and then some Buckleminging later sure she might end up dead but her legacy would go on.

... Did she die in a Buckleming episode? I can't even remember. Maybe it was Bobo sparing her their claws in the same loving way she in-story let Sam kill her.

-

T-t-they cut a lock of Sam's hair off???

they are so dead.

-

I really appreciate the ambient noises of them moving around really sound like this IS shot inside the van, no tricks or anything. 

it's just another little level of ridiculousness to enjoy

-

CAS STOPS HIMSELF TELLING THE MOM ABOUT THE BODIES UNVARNISHED. He's got so much emotional intelligence now!! He also manages to swap back to agent-talk as well, sounding pretty professional as he tells her about the other missing people.

I'm so proud I will burst.

-

Lol of course this mom knows about the toxic run off from the mine. I kinda love her. If her knowledge of the local area because of all her campaining helps, good for her.

-

Er

when someone says they can't show you on a map where something is but they can take you... they may be a vampire.

She's looking very intently at him.

Most monsters do not count on the fact that the rando hunters showing up in town might be an angel when they trick them into going to their den to try and eat them.

-

AHAHAH the witches gave Sam a Keep 'er Moving cardboard box to load up all of rowena's stuff in.

They can't get like, an ebony crate with silver rivets? 

Cheap.

-

Sam tries also using empathy on Emily the witch, but she kinda is too weird to go for it, instead getting morbid about how everyone thought the other witch was more pretty.

Sam's opinion on her prettiness? "She's dead"

Dude, you were full on making heart eyes at Eileen, a Ghost, minutes ago.

You do not have standards to judge people on.

-

Aha, Sam using sympathy to try and turn her. Telling a story about a lol normal boys prank about superglue toothpaste. Emily comes back with being made invisible for a week. Which for her seems like a real pain because she doesn't seem to like talking or interacting with people enough anyway that maybe she feels invisible or wants to be invisible SOME of the time but being made invisible as a punishment for being withdrawn? And then how she'd have to cope for that week? Ow, that's pretty cruel. 

Anyway then there's a laundry list of other horrible things this witch did D:

Her crush being turned into a waterballoon and popping him... Wasn't Chuck's comment about Cas exploding in 5x01 that it had been like a waterballoon full of chunky soup? (shudder.) Maybe this is a representation of the dead witch as God and all the plunger-hitting she's done. Sam can relate with this sort of cosmic bully who's far more powerful than their victims.

Emily then is interesting because she's a sort of representation of all of them being knocked around by Chuck, the story forcing them into demon deals, their loves being torn away from them... Being made invisible like feeling nothing they did ever mattered because it had all been planned anyway... She's currently cowed and broken, and taking part in the cruelty the witches deal back out but Sam wants to reach her and get her aid in escaping this, maybe even to help her flee this toxic relationship if the other witch is just as bad. 

The question is if the witches are being manipulated by Chuck to set up this example so if something terrible happens to Emily, it's not just another lesson in staying in your place and taking this punishment forever. 

-

Emily does have a sort of Magda vibe, being dressed very old fashioned and sort of innocent Sunday churchy look from an old movie...

-

Whether this mom is a monster or not, it's nice Cas has someone to talk to, I guess. He doesn't exactly need much poking to start complaining.

He refers to the Winchesters as "his colleagues" which is so painful knowing he's canonically in love with Dean and regardless, does consider the Winchesters his family and thinking of them in this sense as work only is definitely stripping away a layer from how he feels about them. 

(Idk why I still feel the need to explain and defend Cas having deep emotions, I mean, this was pretty obvious many seasons ago, but I guess even with my long break from fandom, I still feel a protective instinct to justify him having human feels and attachments >.>)

he does sound angrier talking about falling out with "management" than with each other, but he does make sure to add that in too. God may be the problem but he also fostered this rift.

Is Cas gonna mention losing his son too, because I WILL cry. I feel like the crime scene photo intentionally darkened the boy's eyes to make it look sort of like Jack's burned out eyes if you blink quickly past it. :<

-

"Taking yourself out of the game doesn't really change the game." Now I'm wondering if she's a Chuck mouthpiece too because this is just a good slogan she's throwing out there. Maybe it's just something she has practice saying to herself/other people she rants to. She is very obviously opinionated :P

Anyway a reminder that he's still in it even if he does try and take off and go fishing. To go with the reminder that came with Dean telling him Chuck was still around and fucking with them before hanging up. 

-

Cas has way too much to process. 

-

Awww, Cas just immediately does the monsters are real talk without any preamble. It's a good conversation ender I suppose.

he's already guessing it's a djinn.

hey, he'd know about them :P

-

They found Caleb! just sitting there, right when Cas was getting into his monsters speech...

If Chuck is messing up all their hunts lately, often by making them super easy, and in this case seemingly skipping the monster part altogether (possible attack by monsters in a minute anyway pending) not only pulls the rug out from his investigation momentumn, but also of course was right in the middle of the weirdest talk you can give a person and then yanking away the need to prepare her for a monster-eaten child or to witness a fight with a monster or anything. Crashing back down into the human zone, it just embarasses Cas and ruins his moment and everything. 

Like, it's petty, but Chuck is a petty bastard so who knows, if he's scripting this, then ruining Cas's flow might just be like him :P

-

Emily is still rambling about all the horrible things that were done to her.

Sam tries hope again. 

And offers basically everything to get Eileen back, even sending Emily out into the world with all of Rowena's stuff just in exchange for that spell. The stakes are very clearly more about getting her back than in saving himself or worrying about the other witches. if they succeeded in the resurrection it would just be 3 more witches to kill instead of 2, and Sam and Dean are very used to handling witches and would not find these ones particularly threatening after all their experience and inside knowledge gained from knowing Rowena. Sam's bargaining this hard because the spell is his one chance to get Eileen back. And with her in front of him like this, hope being dangled, there is NO ONE he can think of to try it on more than Eileen. Of all their dead friends and family, he reminds us that they didn't want to disturb Mary AGAIN from Heaven, and he's not even thinking of things like, for example from this season, doing right by Kevin with the looooong lingering guilt he has there.

-

Or trying it on Jack and seeing if THAT helps.

-

ha, Caleb both vindicates Cas's attempt at the monsters are real speech, AND was doing the cool thing of trying to "bust his ass" re: catching a monster at work being evil, so I would say he is a very cool kid just based on that.

This is the year of Tik Tok Teens saving us all from ourselves.

-

Oh, huh, it was the unhelpful sheriff who was the monster. Surpriiiise. 

At least it wasn't the busybody mom but it does explain things like how unhelpful the Sheriff was and how he was out getting his hair done or whatever for ages before he shows up and is a balding unmanicured man with very little hair to get done. I guess he could have been off getting it buzzed but really does that book out all your morning appointments?

-

That line about only outsiders going missing sure was suspicious.

-

Lol lol lol hey mr monster did you expect THAT when you shot this raaaandom hunter out in the wild?

:)

-

Oh no, Cas is pissed off about selfish little men in positions of authority.

First of all: mood

second of all: this djinn is about to be torn limb from limb, huh?

This is a very burn it all down speech for 2020 politics but also very much Cas threatening to kill God via the medium of story mirrors.

-

You know what when someone else gets all stabby like this it's a problem but honestly, Cas, I think this counts as therapy for a smitey angel. 

Like, okay, this is maybe a bit horrifying for the humans who are watching you work it out on a djinn who was hapless enough to get busted by you, but I don't even think a rage-stabbing is on the scale of things we should worry about for Cas's mental health vs if Sam went all out on one of the witches in a fit of the stabbies. 

I don't feel like I need to over analyse this as a problem, anyway. Thinking back to 2x03 and Dean pulverising that vampire as therapy as the early example of taking it too far in a hunt to work out the issues.

-

I guess Cas also lost the chance to pass as human once he was shot in front of them, but now they have to walk back from the woods together and it's going to be awkwaaaard because he just frightened them maybe more than the monster did, after all he only glowed a lil bit and said some threatening things. Caleb had all night to rationalise it and come to terms with monsters being real :P

Cas did some absolutely freaky shit in front of them without any warning. 

-

Hooray, plan A worked for Sam so he stalled long enough that Dean showed up so he never had to bargain anything with the witches after all!

Dean in a Meredith episode showing up at the last minute to shoot the witches and quip about witch killing bullets. A classic trope? 

-

I don't know if the Winchesters have a reputation for having good witch killing bullets or if they could have kinda bluffed that such things exist and get to the same spot because honestly without a witch to kill to demonstrate they do work, these are still a fairly novel invention in the hunting community, right? Like, Charlie invented them just for the wicked witch, and then they worked backwards after that to come up with a generic brand... 

I mean if I was a monster that thought most things couldn't kill me but then Dean Winchester Himself popped up next to me and waved a gun at me and told me the bullets in it were designed to kill me specifically, I would listen to him.

-

LOL are we going to have a ghost fight alongside the hunter/witch fight?

YEY EILEEN!!

I love her. 

She's been a ghost far longer than the witch has, she has the advantage there :D

-

WHoopsie Emily died. 

given that she couldn't rebel, threw her lot in with her tormentors, but then Dean shot her to save Sam, it's maybe not the story Chuck would have intended. At least, in that it doesn't pay for her to bend the knee and play along. 

Dean disrupted the story by showing up when he did with Eileen, and I like that they came storming in to ruin things because Dean is a very random element, but Eileen being an OP ghost on their side and helping swing the whole thing in their favour in an incredibly badass way definitely seems a bit unplanned power of love nonsense that Chuck hates :P

-

The shot of Emily collapsing down and bringing the dead witch into shot as she slides down the door frame is really good. Bringing her back down to that level, a reminder as she dies of what she threw her lot in with. The regret, maybe, of not just helping Sam when he offered her a way out. To break the cycle and choose help and self-betterment. As with Rowena and her self-help books.

-

SAM KILLING THE WITCH LIKE ROWENA WOULD 

I CRYYYY

I hope she can see this in Hell and is enjoying every moment of it.

-

I do have to ask how a ghost choking a ghost works when they can't breathe. Eileen was very pink. 

I guess... ghost logic[TM] as defined by this show in its earliest days is... whatever they need it to be at the time.

Anyway Eileen being smart enough even in the moment of peril to point out the body right there that needs to be burned.

She sits up in the glow of the burning witch corpse beaming like a girl on her wedding day.

-

Okay, this family seems a bit more adjusted to Cas after he's taken a moment to dump the body. At least, they're not trying to run away from him...

Love him asking for permission to heal. All about consent here.

-

Oh no, Cas, are you being season 5'd because Chuck hates you? 

Prolly should have thought about that before you, you know. Did everything. 

-

"Were you sent by god?"  
Aw, Cas smiles for the first time all episode after that. I mean, there's a darkness to that smile. But it's a smile! We'll count that as a win. 

"You're better off not knowing"

heh. i mean, please don't go around telling people they live in a godless universe. That's a very post-5x16 Cas thing to do

We don't need too much season 5 Cas up in here.

-

Well, Cas wants to get back in the game. Don't know if her pep talk was from Chuck being annoyed some of his game pieces weren't moving or Cas just wanted to talk to the manager and fix his shit, but he experienced a moment of happiness, because hunting is therapy in this world and he got a nice easy one there with a good resolution and of course people to save and give him a lesson in where he should go next...

I guess you'd go mad and live in a cave watching scooby doo and eating nothing but dry cereal if you started trying to guess how much of everything around you was Chuck and wondering if a pep talk to get back in the game means you should do the opposite or if it is good advice regardless and you SHOULD go back, or - 

(over and over into madness)

-

Aww nice warm herbal bath for Eileen. Sam's such a nice husband. Light some candles, play some soft music...

-

Finally get to see the bunker bathroom after like seven and a half seasons of its existence. Fan writers everywhere delighted to know about the bathtub, tiles, lighting situation, etc. 

(I mean we've seen Dean taking a shower before in 9x18 but it was all in extreme close up, and I don't think we've ever been in a proper set for it, rather than that sort of implication that it was a bunker bathroom but could have been anywhere passing for it.)

-

Oh you know it's serious when you get a pause, then over the shoulder smile. 

Sam gives back the goopiest dumb smile.

Collect your wife from the afterlife, you dummy.

-

Oh wait shit looking back when you're about to leave the afterlife is bad... but if you're the collector, not the collectee... What does mythic precedent even say about this? 

SPN rewriting the rules all the time.

-

That lying in the bath but not being wet or moving the water effect is presumably wildly simple to do but looks SO GOOD.

SPN really getting masterful with the ghost effects after 15 years playing with the concept.

-

AW YES. BACK NAKED, WET AND PERFECTLY MADE UP.

-

CW does not want their actresses to miss eyeshadow no matter WHAT.

-

Very much like Cas's season 7 resurrection in the sense that it's emerging naked from the water, and then he married the person who found him :P 

-

Sam, you have a moment to make the worst decision of your relationship with her, aka whether you turn around or not. Like, the splooshy noises say she's in that bathtub in a physical body, but when you turn around, NOW you're going to get cursed for doing so...

... cursed with the awkwardness of seeing your crush nekkid 

hehehe

-

Sam. Whispering her name with your back turned is not... not exactly useful here.

-

KISS HIIIM

-

Okay the hand holding was very cute and maybe a better speed to take things 

I'm sitting here mouth open with breathless glee and then she went and gave him a very soggy hug. And now I'm giggling to deflect from feeling feelings.

-

SAM BEING HAPPY 2020

-

Dean sitting there at the table like wow, Sam was the biggest badass ever today, mastered the dark arts, and made himself a girlfrend. And I watched a bunch of TV, ate crap, shot one witch, and I still feel like shit. 

Maybe he'd be heartened to know Cas is back in the fight. Like. Maaaaybe he's missing juuuust a bit of what Sam just got. Not jealous of his lil bro scoring big in the game of love, nope, this is just regular feeling like shit, don't ask any more questions.

-

Dean complaining he doesn't know what's god and what isn't in their actions. And like, same, buddy. Spare a thought for us poor folks who analyse the show and never know whether you're supposed to be doing something because you're manipulated or because of your free will and in the end it all happens because some writers in LA scribbled it all down and mailed a script to Vancouver. 

-

And I'm only half sure that SPN isn't going to end with them crawling out the TV screen and going to kill Dabb for all the nonsense he put them through, for real.

[insert that entire video of John Oliver getting told off by Adam Driver for objectifying him, but Dabb vs Dean]

-

Dean, listen to Sam being optimistic. Because after all the stunts he pulled today, he is CLEARLY the competent adult in the room who has his shit together, and you need to start paying attention :'D

-

Well-adjusted badass Sam is my favourite character. 

-

Anyway episode ends on Sam shaming Dean into self-reflecting on how he's been acting lately. And I think that could be a good path for him reconciling with Cas. Obviously Destiel is wildly important, but Sam and Dean are of course the primary relationship and Sam telling him to get his shit together for Sam's sake, the world's sake, also comes with the deal that Dean has to be a better person because Sam needs Cas too and Dean needs to make up with him because while this was a lesson in brother team work, Dean being good with Cas also is one of those things which Makes Shit Happen.

because that was a dark shade of the TFW talk which of course... needed 3 people to make it a team, and not just brothers against the world.


	7. 15x07

15x07 watching notes

Trying not to unravel as I attempt to speed up the process.

I did however simultaneously log into final fantasy XIV because I self-medicate by looking at my giant Roegadyn babe hitting things with a big gunsword. So, speeding up is a subjective concept.

-

Can't believe they used the line about cosmic joke in the open without following it with the clip of Sam being hit with the plunger. 

-

Blah Destiel fight.

Then the comment about "Sam's been trying to call you" as the reminder that Sam also cares about Cas even when it's inconvenient because Cas and Dean are having a big stupid fight. 

(Cas wasn't answering because Sam spelled it Cass)

Of course Sam is getting everything because YAY EILEEEEEEN.

-

This episode starts in "Texhoma" and apologies to anyone who is from there but that sounds fake.

"B's sugar bar" sounds like a great place. Having a star in Bar seems weirdly like trying to censor it or am I too online. Lots of star imagery linked to Cas and him being cosmic a while back. Or him being a fallen star anyway. 

-

Drunk party girls!! 

I'm love them just because, well. Unless they're actively destroying properly, drunk girls are amazing.

Sally running off to puke has all the makings of someone who gets killed by a monster... Her sensible friend is also left standing alone, though, and by a sign with the Death Beer logo on it. Maybe her drunk friend was her only protection against monsters!

-

Lol yep something alarming happened back there while Sally was puking, and then the car is gone without a sound, and we get a shot which proves that there is an El Sol in the window of the bar. Not what it seems - we really would have assumed the one in the car had closed herself safely away while the one standing behind a sketchy bar in the dark with all her defences down was in danger.

But it's the creepy thing in the back seat of the car in the supposedly safe place which is scarier, because you would let your guard down in a very different way. 

Guess it's a lesson not to be a killjoy and say no more drinking, no more after parties. 

Chuck still being vindictive that the Winchesters don't wanna play? Or is this them telling him they WANT to keep partying and they wish he'd just go away so they could keep revelling down on earth? lol.

-

Oh no! Sensible friend was called Angela! That's sure a choice of name in a show with an angel main character hahaha

-

This has a lot of the same vibes as 2x21 where Sam goes to get pie for Dean and disappears in the diner. Instead it's the one in the car who disappears and the one who was wandering around out of the safe place who is in trouble....

-

Oh BOY nasty thing in a cage. 

Well that's horrible.

-

Oh no Dean lying in bed with a million beer bottles all around him. I guess the variety in brands shows he didn't just bring a sixer in here but this is the product of all the weeks of his break up.

Maybe "last call" isn't about the bar where the monster's mom gets its dinners from, but just a meta commentary on slapping Dean upside the head and telling him that's it for drinkies for now.

I think he's wearing the demon!Dean red shirt. After Sam's recent visions I would have assumed Sam would drop a bleach bomb into the laundry with all the shirts he saw them wearing in the visions to prevent them ever happening but I guess he sucks.

-

A+ headlines:

Weather Remains Unchanged

Seniors Home Gets New Foyer Carpet

... yeah, and that's the lead headline of the "Midwest Herald" implying a fairly large range.

... obviously, this is not taking place in 2020.

-

"My Friend Was Raptured While I Was Drunk" is an amazing headline though.

Obviously referring to the belief of people being whisked off to Heaven for being good that doomsday cultists have cultivated in especially America... it's funny because "The Rapture" in SPN lore is the episode where Cas learned about fishing from Dean and he was doing that last episode. 

While they are now canon, I probably shouldn't make such a big leap to say this is a commentary on the distance in their relationship but it's definitely a low ebb for them, as was the end of 4x20, so.

Why not. 

I mean they are canon.

Can't I basically just say what I want now? :'D

-

WAIT

Christian Kane. THIHS IS THIR THELEOOHrhw;ohwer ghpw

THE EPISIDE

IOWkjrh

... 

Oh no. 

I forgot this even happened.

I saw like the barest spoilers and

oh my god oh my god I am not ready because I forgot that was a thing

Oh my god they are giving Dean an ex boyfriend to hang out with while Cas is broken up with him and Sam's all happy and making pancakes with Eileen and everything's just fuckin rosy for him and Dean's miserable and drunk in his room and Sam's like LOL LOOK WHO IS ALIVE in the worst possible family way of commenting on someone emerging from their cave. 

Sam is never, ever the one who is happily indulging in food and talking about how it's "never enough" food. Sam indulges in food in like, key solitary moments of the show where its of the utmost character importance to show him happy, and willing to eat a lot.

So the fact he's just gone nuts with the pancakes hanging out with Eileen, who I assume is enjoying eating now she is alive again with a vicariousness of someone who had a genuine no strings attached ress done by a badass crush of hers who has mutual shared trauma and also just really great chemistry... yeah, Sam is living the high life

Dean will shoot him if he stays in the bunker anywhere near him right now.

Chuck's latest fratricide gambit coming a bit out of left field like "what if Sam was just irritatingly happy" but you know what, it's a move that he has not ever tried before, so they won't see it coming :'D

-

C H R I S T I A N K A N E

-

If Destiel is canon, is this actually meant to be an ex boyfriend for realsies?

Questions you can only ask for the next 2 days then the finale will air and that will be that.

-

Oh my god Sam and Eileen are hungover and eating piles of bacon and

... 

this is so good I'm so happy for them

-

Dean passes on the food and Sam is like wait, my brother is dying

-

Dean is now more aware than ever after witnessing the pancake scene and how Eileen and Sam were drinking fun drinks like margharitas together last night while he was just non-stop drinking beer alone in the dark that he has to leave.

Incompatible vibes.

-

oh don't worry Sam, Dean is not going to be alone on this case. 

-

Dean teasing Sam about Eileen. 

Sam is like it's not like that and I don't think he believes it. He permits himself a little smile when Dean is gone.

At least they can have this conversation in the hall and Eileen won't overhear it so he doesn't have to die of embarassment.

Meanwhile Dean is stuck with an entity who will hear every embarassing conversation they have about him through like 5 walls.

I guess once they're living as a happy bunker family, Cas will just tell Eileen everything they say about the both of them for her. Between the two of them, an average range of hearing!

-

Anyway Eileen is immediately awesome and supportive to Sam because she is meant to be the best wife for him.

-

Oh, hello Jeremy Adams! Yes, I remember now that I knew you were writing this episode but on account of not watching it for a month I've forgotten everything about it.

I guess circa this episode was about when I really drifted out of fandom and into a long sleep. 

-

Sam wonders if this is progress because Dean's leaving the house, and seems chirpy enough. I guess he doesn't really know that Dean's mostly just trying to have some enthusiasm for life by doing a case at a dive bar involving drunk girls. 

Hilariously, not far off the siren episode premise in the sense that I'm pretty sure that he's gonna be way more emotionally invested in Christian Kane and less in the drunk girls. But it gets Dean out of bed so... I guess that's something. But I think Sam is being over optmistic, and Dean is merely looking for a coping mechanism. A case was one thing, a case where he can have a few drinks and maybe a hook up with any non-raptured drunk girls? Way up his street when it comes to coping methods.

-

Dean's alias here is "dukes"? Like Dukes of Hazzard but actually specifically Daisy Dukes as in the slang for the little short short cut off jeans that we know that Dean rocks for car washing and general dancing around the bunker shaking his booty when no one is home to see him.

The cop is like "Put up your dukes!" finding a super hypermasculine way to interpret it, and Dean may have his under the surface explanation for what he's feeling that only long-time fans might even begin to giggle about, because the surface betrays nothing.

-

Which is another reason Sam shouldn't be so cheery when Dean can give him a finger gun and wink just once, like he's all cured and ready to go.

-

Well that conversation got weird. Side note: why does it always get weird with Dean and charismatic but sometimes odd guys in uniform? 

Just asking.

-

Once again we have LA dreams - which takes us back to 12x07, where Dean played guitar for half a second, reminding us he used to want to be a rockstar... And then 15x05 told us freshly that yep he still kinda would if he could. 

That yearning for something better, something different, a new lease on life, a new direction. Fulfilling dreams, escaping the stagnant, the small town, the stifling closeness of everyone knows you and keeps you locked into old expectations, etc etc.

-

.... Swayze's bar. Of course.

Is this "Last Call" Dean's final season showdown with the whole concept, everything we've ever cumulatively analysed about him and bars and his escapes and coping mechanisms and desires. And the unfulfilling side of this all. 

-

OH YEAH SO OKAY the cop definitely was hitting on Dean a little there calling him hollywood attractive. He WAS angling for the exact thing he seemed to be earlier in the conversation.

Saying the quiet part out loud this season, huh?

-

Dean's perturbed by that, rather than immediately flattered, but gives the guy another look as he heads back into the station, tipping his hat to some more men at the door. 

Just a whole lot of working things out for Dean to do. So little time to do it.

-

LOL Dean thinking he's going to get his gun taken but it's like no this is texas you can keep the gun, just put your phone away.

I'm sure this isn't going to cause any problems.

He feels immediately comfortable here, everything about it feeling like home for him (the dive bar aesthetic mixing with the casual cowboy aesthetic) and also immediately starts flirting with the phone check lady.

-

Based on siren episode logic, Dean's sure thing with her is going to fall right through if he discovers his ex hanging out here. 

-

Oh good, it was him singing through all this.

And Dean is doing the rom com trope of looking up at the band and seeing him and REALISING.

-

"oh. Oh. I've fucked this guy."

-

Okay So I've watched a minute of their interaction and I'm dying at how predictable this show and Dean are. Stopping by to giggle at 1, how I thought Kane really was swooping in for a kiss for a second before he turned the intensity off to yell at Lorna to get them beers. And 2, how he was like, "me and my my - my - boy here"

I mean, maybe he is just kinda prone to talking like that, he seems a bit frantic... but on the other hand, it is funny to see him stumble over what to introduce Dean as.

-

There's a sign between them that says The Texas Impalas, I'm going to scream if that's the name of his band.

But scream quietly because it's half past midnight.

-

Throws in a casual "You sound good!" to him as they walk off-screen to catch up the boring small talk between scenes.

-

Anyway back to Sam and Eileen date night.

Dorks who just keep looking at each other and smiling.

She definitely just propositioned him.

THAT'S RIGHT SAMMY, GO IN FOR THE HAND HOLDING

He's so disgustingly saccharine with this and I love it.

-

R E V E N G E

Interrupting Moose, meet Interrupting Cas, he's a billion years old and dumped your brother a lil while ago, and now he's here to funk up your love nest with his misery stink so you are not going to get to smooch Eileen until he's happy.

Great incentive for Sam to set him up with Dean.

-

Oh my god Cas comes busting in urgently without even knocking (Dean DID tell Sam to put a sock on the door this is his own fault) and then he's not even like "omg terrible stuff is happening" he's just like "hi I wanna help" 

and then finally notices Sam has a girl round.

-

If Cas can sense Dean's longing and knows it's all the way off in Texas, maybe that's why he busted in so confidently.

That or he was prepared to fight Dean and got this scene instead.

-

"I thought you were dead"  
"Yeah, I got better."

I love her.

Cas back to being untactful though :'D

-

"Lilith!?"  
keep up, Cas.

To be fair, Dean's phonecall was entirely unhelpful.

-

Awww omg bless Jeremy Adams giving Cas lines which sound like season 4 Cas in all the best ways. "You're looking in all the wrong places" "???" "Your wound still hasn't healed?" "No-" "GOOD."

I love when Cas is all fired up like this and thinking of things in a galaxy brain way, and as much as sensitive empathetic hunter!Cas last episode was amazing, Cas busting out his fierce side to hunt down God is exactly what we need on the flip side. 

He's a very multi-faceted character :') 

-

"There may be some of you inside Chuck"  
"Ew"

Sorry, Eileen, this nonsense is pretty par for the course when you date Sam, you're going to have to get used to his bodily autonomy being messed around with :'D In this case, Chuck violating someone's soul to make the gun work? YIKES.

And to Sam, who has had his soul messed with enough.

-

Dean somewhat had John's approval to hang with this guy who's name i must have missed despite desperately looking for it... Like yeah they got wasted together but on the other hand he was good in a fight and so really just isn't that hunter culture? If you handle yourself and don't get killed, then heavy drinking later is just par for the course. Dean must have been young for John to be mad, and he says the last time he saw him was when Sam was in college, meaning an upper end of 26 when he was hanging with him. But it sounds like he was one of those hunter friends who pops in and out of Dean's life. Maybe there was one memorable hunt when they were both really young, like, late teens, and then Dean reconnected while Sam was in college, once he was allowed to hunt on his own. 

Which makes this some of the rare canon of what weirdly photoshopped Dean of 10x02 was even up to in that time (sorry, the mental image returned before I could banish it with amusement at long-haired Dean in the 1x01 driver's license). 

I suppose also since this is a last season episode, this is Dean's wrap up on hunter culture, something that obviously affected him far more than Sam, who mostly tried running from it. Dean fully embraced the life when he was young so even if John kept him at a remove from the community, the world of roadside bars and bad motels and so on is engraved in Dean's soul, and the hunters who shared it with him in formative years are important. There was that loser in the season 3 Sin City episode who was obviously an extreme of that sort of thing, but in general hunters are of a type, largely anti-domestic and lone wolf, and indulging in temporary pleasures in between near-death experiences. Obviously Christian Kane's character is living a life now which is similar to what Dean's dream bar in his head was like, where he gets to own the place and domesticity comes from being the peddlar of these pleasures, stability is always having a bar roof over your head. The liminal space between on the road and settled down, for a hunter. Hence, the Roadhouse being a temporary refuge in season 2. 

Also this being a Dean-like character explains why of course it was called Swayze's :P No further analysis needed to wonder why he'd name it that. We take his interests and tastes to be Dean's as a given and exceptions either prove the rule or expose Dean's own.

-

Headcanon that Dean's long hair as a youth was because of spending time with a young Christian Kane. 

Do not @ me with a photo of this actor with short hair, I only know him from Leverage and I will not be accepting any interpretation of him that isn't long-haired.

Not for nothing but there was an episode of Leverage where Alona Tal was a country singer that Kane's character had a past with and it also took place in a similar world and I guess emotional feeling as this sequence has already evoked? Like a past flame who sings up on stage...

Everything loops around and around :P 

-

"I thought you were -"  
"Dead"  
"Well that's usually how this ends, isn't it?"

Is it just me or does this jigsaw-puzzle into the lines from Cas to Sam and Eileen about HER being dead and getting better? In the sense that both are revealing something about these love interests (sorry, I'm just. Destiel is canon and it wasn't like I wasn't already describing passing dudes as Dean's one episode love interests before this. Now I'm unstoppable). Dean of course makes himself and Christian Kane sad thinking about how Dean is pretty much assuming he's on track to die of the job one day or another, caught in a mirror where instead of just optimistically bringing a girlfriend back from the dead and having a whole new lease on life with her like Sam has done, Dean's trapped here in this fading world of fleeting encounters and emotional connection, work-related, likely to be dead next time you phone for a booty call, and therefore better just to forget and move on after every encounter and count your blessings if there's another by chance. 

Of course that's a grim moment for him :<

-

Wow, meanwhile Christian Kane did one more job after something with Dean, found his heart was no longer in it and settled down. So he's been here the whole run of the show and change, which explains why no bumping into him sooner, or of course any of the many villains like Meg and Lilith for starters who killed large numbers of hunters they knew or didn't know. 

The detail that the very next thing he did after working with Dean was where he realised that he was no longer interested in being a hunter is hilarious though. What did Dean DO to him in that encounter that changed his youthful scrappy mindset to something that would settle down??

-

And here's the exception that proves the rule/exposes Dean: Dean asks if he regrets walking away, knowing that their minds were about as alike as they could be when they were young, trusting his judgement to tell him what HE would have felt had he done the same. 

"Not once."

Dean takes a plunger to the head of his own, realising there was a world where maybe he could have been not a hunter but still happy. 

-

No Cas, though. But Cas just dumped his ass and he's been moping about ever since so you know. Not a consideration right now. 

-

cas is on FINE FORM, offering to probe Sam's wound. Cue Eileen tipping her head in concern and Sam just blurting "Probe it!?!"

Honestly you are all so squeamish about that word :'D

Like, not the probing Sam and Eileen wanted to be doing this evening.

-

Eileen like "Is that.... dangerous?" while Sam takes the confirmation that it probably is as the cue to take his shirt off. 

Welcome to the family, Eileen. You're going to have to get used to this assholes.

-

I see you stroking Sam's face once he was instantly knocked out by the ordeal.

-

Ahahahaaaa Cas trying to phone Dean to tell him Sam is hurt but Dean's probably not picking up. 

Anyone else get adverts for Philly cheese on their stream and it's like, "READY TO SPREAD" on a banner under Cas as he hangs up in irritation.

-

Oh, good, Dean and his friend shared triplets at some point because of course we need a Drowley reminder here. 

Demon!Dean being the epitome of this wandering road life with bars for comfort but. No actual comfort gleaned from them. 

The implication seems to be the two of them took one or two of the triplets their own separate ways, unless you WANT to assume they were all in one room together. 

it's also possible this is all an exaggerated porny fantasy and the truth was maybe hanging out with them for an evening, maybe a few stolen kisses, everyone's drunk and falls asleep in a pile :P Really starting to doubt Dean could bang as many twins and triplets as he claims he has. 

\- 

Though it does seem through the eye contact immediately after that if he wanted to bang the phone check lady and Christian Kane at the same time that absolutely is on the table. 

-

Seeing as we're 15 minutes through the episode and not much has happened on this side of the story I'm going to have to assume they're a body-snatching operation and even though the girl was taken from a different bar, the sheriff, who is also in on it, saw right through Dean and sent him to the source to get fed to the nasty thing in the cage, and only Christian Kane being an ex saves Dean from already being monster chow. 

Like maybe he didn't stop hunting because he wanted to but because he found a cute monster he had to take responsibility for feeding every week so he had to open a roadside bar to get the kind of clientele he could feed to it.

Parenthood is tough :P

-

That said, Dean has MULTIPLE episodes primarily built around socialising with men in a bar setting only for something plot related to swoop in at the very last second on a thin thread so who knows. 

-

Oh my god it's this Sergei guy.

Do Americans know that Brits have had that name ruined for us in pop culture because of Meerkat adverts so when I hear Sergei, I instantly start thinking of Compare the Meerkat which is a joke some ad exec took way, way way way waaay too far.

-

Sergei like, so you're scraping the barrel of contacts, and Cas is like dangit everyone we ever ask for help is dead, like, we're getting to the point where it's you or Professor Morisson who Bobo wrote out of the show in his first episode back in season nine, so you understand my problem. 

-

"Your negotiation skills have improved"

Yeah we have a new writer who clearly has a boner for intense!Cas. Buckle up, Sergei.

Maybe you should get some insurance for that burn.

-

Oooh Cas calling in a mysterious favour with someone else off-camera. 

(It's Professor Morisson.)

-

Dean's reminiscing about ghost sickness!!

Maybe a nod to Andrew Dabb as his first episode, just a kind of started at the bottom and now we're here thing.

Another episode where Dean drank heavily to cope with an exposure of his weaknesses. The episode had extremely heavy subtextual gay jokery with the whole names of the baseball teams, the snake sliding over Dean's lap, etc, and also used Lilith to torment Dean to remind him of his time in Hell, so the reminder is timely now in season 15 since she's back.

I remember also getting quite fascinated with how it was a mirror image episode to the siren episode later in season 4, which of course is the icon of dean is bi episodes. I don't know if I ever quite cracked a solid thesis on why the two would be so alike, except that it seemed to be just deliberate enough to make me wonder if there was a point to enforce through repetition the way Dean's emotional state was unravelling in season 4. And the fact underlying discomfort and fears about his sexuality at the time played into it was interesting to me.

IF in 2 days Destiel is confirmed undeniable canon on Dean's side too, the fact that season 4 spent multiple episodes smashing around Dean's self-worth in relation to his sexuality right when Cas was freshly introduced and he was raw from Hell, I will take a victory lap for the validated reinterpretation of that whole season through this lens.

-

Like, I don't know how at this point if Cas is confirmed in love with Dean, you can say that well that's all well and good, but this enormous wealth of discussion in relation to Dean and his sexuality still isn't even a thing and he will perpetually be a 100% straight character.

I type, with the screen paused on him looking earnestly into the eyes of his rekindled flame. 

Like, I know they're off-screen friends as far as I can recall of the pre-episode hype, so I have to assume this wild chemistry is part of them kicking back, but using it in this way isn't saying Jackles is gay for Kane so much as the show with its huge history of Dean's sexuality, pulled in an actor who there WOULD be fire chemistry with for an episode like this.

And again, final season card, Destiel confirmed, they both knew about it for this entire season, etc etc.

-

Lol lol lol so finally Lee (NAME. FINALLY. A short name i may have missed in the noise in this place way back >.>) actually asks Dean what case he's working, Dean pulls out the picture of Angela, Lee is like I Have Never Seen This Woman In My Life, at which point the trusty waitress leans over like, huh, that's Angela, why are you pretending you don't know a loyal customer, my guy?

#awkward

-

He quickly acts like he just forgot her, pointing out she hardly drinks while her friend is like a fish. It SEEMS plausible as a memory slip if she's shyer and less likely to be at the bar, but also then he immediately asks Dean why he's still driving around the country working on missing persons cases like this is a sad, boring thing to be doing.

Dean getting fulfilment saving girls from monsters is like his primary way to fill his Sims mood bar.

Dean of course is quick to reply that he still loves this part. In fact, with God not helping anyone, he's somehow more fulfilled than ever doing this. He's literally stepping in to these empty shoes, same as taking over from John in season 1 when he stopped helping people and went off on his revenge mission. And Dean, who genuinely likes being a hero and mopping up the failed father figure's messes, is there to catch the little people. 

-

"It's been a rough decade, Lee."

You went to hell over a decade ago.

-

"This is nothing you can't have, man."

I know he kinda means it in a self-help book way, but also in a "you could just cut the middle man of earning it yourself, and marry me."

-

"You deserve a break. Maybe even two."

That was definitely about the threesome they could have.

-

HE TOLD HIM ABOUT EYE OF THE TIGER.

-

And now he's being flirted onto stage by a friend who keeps calling him "boy" 

I'm supposed to ship them, right?

Dean's rockstar dreeeeeeeeeams.

Lee certainly knows Dean :') 

-

being a demon apparently makes you really bad at singing. Dean singing in his comfort zone of old rock songs his dad used to play for him, that he must have belted along to in the car countless times, he's certainly redeeming himself for 10x01 at long last. 

-

Aww an ass slap between friends. Dean's totally comfortable here, like, he notes it, but he just teases Lee away as "You son of a bitch" with a wink and a point instead of being terrified that everyone just saw him get his ass slapped by a dude in public on stage and he enjoyed it because, er, manly bonding.

-

I mean it's a part of manly bonding rituals yes but it's also pretty gay and also used to emasculate men when they do it to each other with mean intent, and the line between those three things, in both society and Dean Winchester's brain, is extremely thin and confusing. 

-

Anyway this is so Dean on the rebound from Cas. 

I think he needs this, in a way... Just remembering that bonding with a dude can be fun and singalong nonsense and all, that there are things he can wish for in a relationship, namely, fun, and also maybe cut loose some more with Cas because he is extremely uptight around him, both in plot ways but also just their emotional history leaves them so highly strung all the time that even when they're chilling, things can get weird fast. 

-

His needy little reach for Lee while they're singing, and Lee eventually moves back into range and Dean gloms onto him.

He craaaaves the contact :<

-

Oh boy I just realised that it's been a blissful few months of not shipping a touchstarved asshole with everyone who was kind to him for a hot minute. 

-

I'm not sure if "Roadhouse rules?" is a reference to the movie roadhouse, which i have not seen, but based on the name of the bar I'm guessing it's an influence. I mean, Lee is like, yeah, and he and Dean immediately go to intervene in whatever's going on in this scene that kicked off while he was supposed to be enjoying the afterglow of his song and own sneaky butt-grab on Lee.

-

Oh I saw you Dean.

-

For the record, Lee was the one who flung a dude out of his own window: Dean at least went for the doors and less property damage. 

-

Ah, singing, drinking, fighting together. Manly man bonding. :3

-

And of course that inevitably leads them to Sally. 

-

I just realised that with Sam unconscious, Cas and Eileen are technically working fixing this alone together, which is awesome in having the two love interests chilling together working a problem.

The problem being that as much as they love Sam, he WILL get knocked out if you give him an INCH and this is very annoying.

Sergei isn't here to heal Sam per se, just to lift the Gets Knocked Out curse on him.

-

Oh, it turns out it's a fatal curse.

-

Lee drilling unhelpfully in the background, throws in a teasing comment while Sally is talking about her missing Angel(a). Kinda not giving the sympathy due to a random victim of the week... Dean stuck out the job because he truly cares about these people. Lee worries less about them, and even with a sad friend talking about a snatched girl right in his bar, he's not giving her the full deference. Keeping to shoring up his own walls, shuttering over the window he briefly smashed open in the moment of triumph with Dean.

Now his bar is empty except for Dean's work, and they're more focussed on that, and Lee is out of being the centre of attention, his first instinct is to quip from the sidelines, not reading the room. 

-

I don't know why Dean thinks it's weird the car got raptured along with Angela. Baby went to heaven with him in 5x16, and we do not talk about that nearly enough as a fandom.

Her licence plates were the current season 5 ones in the 4th of July memory.

-

(Dabb vs cars, vs Lizzy.)

-

Poor Sally, though, thinking the Rapture came and her friend was good enough but she wasn't.

-

Lee: "You can't rapture a car"  
Sally: "IT WAS A GOOD CAR"

thank you, Jeremy Adams. It had to be said. And you said it.

-

"Best friends don't up and leave without saying goodbye"  
"unless they deserve it"

oh no, is this something that happened between them?

-

"Where do you dump a car around here?"   
"Uhhh the lake"  
"Or the wrecking yard!" once again the waitress, clearly Lee's better conscience, leaps in with a suggestion based on the whole Sally lead, which is probably correct and accidentally cutting through an attempt to throw Dean off.

-

It's also the possibility that she is the monster and just is teasing them with information about where to dump a car. Maybe not where SHE did it but, you know, jumping in to throw them off. 

-

Hm, Lee does immediately say "WELL I THINK THE LAAHKE" so maybe he is trying to avoid the obvious answer.

Dean doesn't like his intuition, says he'll take the scrap heap.

-

Blah blah Sam's soul is a rubber band. The implication it's connected right out to Chuck is terrifying - Sam's soul has been through enough, guys! 

Sergei seems to think he can fix it, though I'm dubious he means well, he has enough of a Russian crowley vibe to make me think he's not totally adverse to doing the actual right thing once in a while for his own benefit, if the character coding is a help. So maybe he will not cause problems...

-

Ow, Dean in a scrap yard. Missing Bobby or looking for Impala parts, who knows.

-

Aaaand he uncovers a dead body :< Too late to save her, and certainly shouldn't have spent the night drinking, fighting and singing, if he wanted to have a chance to get to her, we'd have to assume he's thinking. 

-

The fact that the tip off about this place panned out just makes Lee even more suspect

-

Oh, right, he's here.

"Couldn't leave well enough alone, couldya?" *smash*

-

Sergei does some weird herb daubing... 

And gets a horrible reaction from Sam, which does at least let Sam see some of Chuck's recent escapades. 

"I made it worse"

Maybe he means it has to burn out like a fever. Get right in there, let Sam start fighting it.

(side note: if you have a covid fever, please don't like just try and burn it out, contact a medical professional)

-

Or of course Chuck sent him to fuck things up for Sam.

"Will die. And soon! :)"

Yeah, he's out for them.

-

Sam sees just a liiittle glimpse of the text of Swan Song being written, among other things. 

I'm so glad the story is tackling Swan Song head on in this way instead of just occasionally revisiting events, to actually look at the narrative of what was HAPPENING that day. How Chuck really did manipulate it all into place. That as much as everyone has their disputes with the people on the ground there, it was CHUCK who was doing all the heavy lifting, it was this abandoning father who motivated all the big players into place and was cited by Michael and Lucifer as they argued...

-

OH MY GOOD GRAVY, EILEEN CAN BE SCARY.

Forget the wrath of Cas for hurting Sam. She's gone straight for the choke slam.

-

You could at least look at Eileen when you talk, bastard. 

-

I guess when he got to the Bunker he weighed up his personal safety versus what he might obtain in here.

I'm guessing that what he wants he's not getting but will in fact reveal a mcguffin for the ongoing story.

-

oH NO. Maybe not symbolically relevant but I just found a hole in my Purple Dog Shirt while fidgeting nervously through his explanation of the Death Library Card.

-

WOW CAS, look at this bluff!

I guess that's the favour he called in. 

... Wait, I legit can't remember what the last time we saw BAUbby was. I guess he's just out there living his life now? If he's not dead? I thought for a wild moment Cas was bluffing and meant original Bobby and that no one was watching her.

I mean obviously BAUbby probably will not kill this girl for such a purpose but it's useful to have a contact who can do something even halfway this sketchy for you.

-

Welcome back Sammy :D

-

Sergei compliments the new Cas as being very.... Russian.

I expect to see party!Cas downing a whole bottle of vodka now.

-

he's a white trashy party girl like Sally at heart. 

-

Sally lost her goodie two shoes friend Angela because she was too square. But Cas isn't JUST the cute little cherub someone might assume an angel is. He can throw a cowboy hat on and down a ton of drinks if he wants to.

-

How DOES concussion stack with a hangover?

Also, now Dean is all alone on a hunt gone wrong with no back up.

I hope he took his phone when he left to go to the scrap yard. It would be just a dumb drunk mistake to have walked off without it. 

-

Is. He. Fucking. Kidding. 

(he being Jeremy Adams.)

Lee walks in and the music gets tense and within a second Dean's like "this is not you" in the almost exact cadence and tone as the 8x17 cool original flavour crypt scene.

-

Oh NO he was disillusioned after the hunt with Dean and the true nature of evil out there seeming too overwhelming. Dean took it as a challenge but Lee saw something so awful it changed him... Now he's here representing the part of Dean that looked at God as the big bad and could not handle the concept, and has noped out of the narrative for the last few episodes. 

His motivation now is "have a little fun" and i've talked a lot about Dean's nihilism in the face of awfulness, especially season 13 when he lost Cas, but many points throughout, really. And while his idea of fun has been watching Scooby Doo and not even really neglecting his job as a hunter, since he was willing to do this and his motivation to help the "little folk" is undimmed - maybe even brightened in the face of adversity - it's just his motivation to go up against the root of all evil. The reason why they all have to do these jobs in the first place.

it's enormous, but he's equal to the task I think.

What happened to Lee was he wasn't even equal to the task of regular evil in the world, even before it's scaled up :(

-

Pfft it's the same as the episode with the horrible horned god in the meat packing plant. Monsters that promise wealth and health in exchange for being fed. How many people have this deal going for them? It's also the Scarecrow plot. In a way this is the more real manifestation of his desires, and the apple pie back in that episode was just the metaphor. Dean wouldn't want to live in the creepy orchard town anyway. The pie was being used in connection to Dean in the show's language for the very first time with no concept of what it would mean to him longterm. So long term that 10x03 used forgotten pie as a metaphor for his entire state of being for example. And the show hasn't been lazy with throwing the pie and cake metaphors at us throughout. Then combine Dean's dream bar with Lee's, one in his head, one bought with blood money... The bar is Dean's apple pie: living that sort of comfort which is styled to him personally, where he might thrive. Where there's still something he wants (Pamela reminds us) but the set up, the concept, is narrowing in. 

But Lee took the shortcut, the bloody way where he abandons his values as a hunter and hurts people instead of helping them, so he can fast-track to retirement. So what could have been a good hunter and loyal friend through alllllll the years Dean has endured on the job, Dean thought he was DEAD because why would he assume otherwise when he isn't showing up and coming to help? But he's been sitting it all out here in his bar.

"After everything we've done, aren't we OWED a little happiness?"

Dude, you made it like 3 years in the industry. It's like the sheriff said about going to LA. Dean made it, he's got the chops for it. Lee came crawling back after a hot minute failing in the spotlight. 

Only one of you is a superstar hunter that a demon would piss themselves if they heard was heading their way.

-

"No one cares, Dean"  
"Well, I do"

Once again, arguing the nature of good and bad, the meaning of existence itself, Dean may be furious that God isn't stepping in to help, but it doesn't matter, because DEAN WILL BE THERE TO HELP INSTEAD. 

This is the absolute culmination of the arc where Dean was framed as divinity - either fallen or ascendant - because he IS the moral centre of the universe. At least as far as this universe is concerned. The literal Creator here doesn't even care, and is fixated on Dean, who is doing a better job at being a better God that God does. 

Because the show has always framed Dean's morals about good and bad, fate and destiny, and all, as the correct compass of the show. His "Saving people, hunting things" speech opened most episodes for like at least the first season and sporadic MotW afterwards. He was talking Sam into why you would even do the job over following personal desires right back there in Wendigo, convincing Sam they did have a higher calling, and it wasn't what God said, it was what John instilled in them.

And of course, the message from season 1 was that John had instilled in Dean how to be a better hunter than himself. That JOHN had also abandoned them to go on his personal mission, but was leaving them guidance to continue doing the Good Work in his stead.

And Sam was reluctant, torn with wanting to also go do the revenge thing, which of course was why they were separated in Scarecrow, Sam stumbling into Meg while trying to pursue a revenge lead, while Dean kept on the case because he valued a chance to save lives higher than the A plot. 

(I mean, that was it, really. Dean was the B plot motw guy, sam the A plot main story arc guy.)

-

My brother just sent me a Thancred/Urianger meme and utterly derailed my train of thought, so that's that for now.

-

BAD SHOULDER PAT. BAD.

-

Oh, wait, the handprint thing was vindicated on every level to the point that Jensen and Misha added that shit themselves... When I flip about people patting Dean on the wrong shoulder, as a betrayal of the bond (e.g. Lucifer in 11x11) am I like... right...

-

Lee like "this is not how I wanted this to go" and then starts ranting about how he and Dean were having a great night and then a blonde girl walked in and ruined it for them.

Did their friendship wobble because Dean banged a girl when Lee was pining for him and now this is it on a much more dramatic scale?

Anyway, Lee knew it was over as soon as Dean had a person to save. And Lee's jealous of the people who take Dean's attention away because he wants to help them, and not selfishly live in the hedonistic world Lee made for himself here.

When it comes to picking between Dean and saving his own skin, then Lee picks himself. That selfishness vs Dean's selflessness setting them apart... And honestly having Cas's big confession at the end of the season be about how great Dean is and all these values he embodies, giving us these episodes to right Dean's wobbling course and show us that his heart is still true no matter what else happens... Waaah.

-

Which of course does make Lee and Cas direct "rivals" in the sense that Lee sacrifices Dean, Cas sacrifices himself for Dean.

-

There's a sign on the door that says "PRIVATE we don't call 911 [picture of a gun]" which is very very texan but also shows the cross over between a weird gun obsessed culture and how hunters can fit so easily into that because having a horrible monster in the basement and shooting anyone who goes in is a weirdly far less dramatic line here than anywhere else.

-

Ahahahahaahaaa

Dean just throws the monster's head through as a... parley? Hey I killed ya monster, wanna talk about things now?

-

*SNORT* Dean rolls under the bar, and immediately obtains a shotgun like getting a video game powerup. "God Bless Texas."

-

No season is complete without a shoot out in a bar, old west style.

-

The awkward sexual tension in a room when you're both out of bullets.

-

LOL "I am you. I'm just you that woke up and saw the world was broken" so I really don't need to write all these notes, huh?

-

"THEN YOU FIX IT"

There needs to be a new type of capslock for Dean's growl.

-

"But I kill monsters."

OoooooooooooooooOOOH. SLAM DUNK.

-

Lee was scared before but he looks half-dead already in the reaction shot to that.

-

Of course Dean impales him with a pool cue. Of course. 

And of course it's all up close and personal with Lee grasping at him and Dean now lost his fury at once and is looking at him softly from inches away in disappointment.

You know they kissed at least once when they were young.

-

"Why do you care so much, Dean?"  
"Because someone has to."  
They made a special job just for Dean. It's got a desk and everything. Guy Who Cares Too Much About Everything.

*rewinds, as usual when we analyse Dean, to 2x20 and Dean yelling at John's grave about why it has to be him, but at the same time accepting he has to go kill monsters and can't get the peace he wants*

-

We did get a djinn just last episode after all.

-

I KNEW the next line was going to be "glad it was you"

corny, but when you're dying in a guy's murder-embrace, you don't have to be too original.

-

Hey, Dean.

I know a way less complicated ex you could hook up with.

He's called Castiel and he was trying to call you hours ago you dick.

-

HAHAHAHA And here they ARE.

Poor Cas, canonically in love with Dean in this scene. 

Dean comes rushing in, still bloody, pants out that he got Cas's message, and Cas is like, he's fine.

[awkward silence to end all awkward silences]

[Cas walks off without bothering to finish this conversation]

Good for you, Cas, standing your ground. You earned that self-respect.

-

Sam reporting the good news about Chuck being weak.

Hilarious that Sam gets a direct line to God and he's delighted because it's revealing that they might have an advantage in killing him now.

-

Sam and Eileen sitting on a bed together, already paired up and basically together. Dean and Cas standing not really together, but also paired. Just... separate right now. But we have these two pairings in the same room. One of whom still needs to get over their shit, the other of whom just needs to be left alone for an hour with some boxed wine and a locked door.

-

Anyway guess we're going to go beat god up or something, that shall be fun. 

Cas gets a reaction shot but honestly everyone's so fucked over by God and he was such a bad father that Cas's particular claim to help with that punching is almost just as level as everyone else's. In the cosmic sense, definitely.


	8. 15x08

15x08 watching notes

The title of this episode, "Our father who aren't in heaven" makes me suspicious off the bat that it's Buckleming because they do pun titles. 

However it's such a bad one that it might be anyone having a bit of fun rather than just bad because someone thought it would be good. We'll see how that pans out. 

-

Adam!!

Season 5 Cas in the recap!!!

HEY, ASSBUTT

-

What an inglorious end for Adam/Michael.

I mean, for then. For now, I'm assuming that there's a reason I've been seeing Jake Abel in show-related nonsense for a while now, even on Twitter where I've been chilling relatively spoiler free.

-

Oh dear, Chuck handling waiting for the end of the show about as well as the rest of us.

i'm reminded of 2x13 where Sam told Dean he was like the rat that kept pressing the pleasure button instead of the food button when Dean was really into the magic fingers on his bed. 

Chuck sort of doing that, but in this really horrifying way where he has rigged the game here so he always wins, and he's killed all the people in the casino except I guess the hottest waitress, who he's bothering to make him drinks even though he can whip them up himself fine. 

Like Dean spiralling a bit over the last few episodes, Chuck also seems to have been not handling being trapped on earth well. Super powerful, completely useless. He's wasting his time here doing this thing where he gets to lord it over someone and smite people and he's always winning the big jackpot, but it's pointless because he's just pressing this one button over and over and he KNOWS the result.

It doesn't exactly breed creative thinking. He's, like, chasing the momentary high of the win which he can give HIMSELF without any challenge and no one to gainsay him. 

I mean maybe he just came to gamble, rigged it, had a dispute with management, and started smiting, and bit by bit ended up here. Trapped in this insane cycle of rewarding himself over and over at the peril of everyone else.

it's a great little tableaux of both how he's been spending the time in the immediate past, and also showing the flaw in his overall gameplan for the universe. If he writes the story and makes it all happen, then he's rigged the challenge to come out to the jackpot the way he wants it.

But if we go to spoiler territory that I've seen, in relation to Destiel going canon, it's because Cas was uniquely able to slip between the cracks of Chuck's plan in this specific world, and so Chuck COULDN'T rig it. There was no button he could press to get the jackpot he wanted. And as much as he tries to write these Worst Fratricide Endings, Cas keeps getting all up in it and ruining it for him. And the Winchesters themselves are hardly inclined to play along.

So in a way this could be Chuck venting his frustration about not getting what he wants, and so he does this which resembles the outcome he's desiring every time he goes a grand cosmic gamble.

But it's not a gamble if you know you're going to win...

-

Love that Eileen is perfectly willing to bodily shove Sam out the way in order to stab a monster. 

They're such a power couple. She's the power and he's the couple of braincells following her around :P

-

Oh my god he literally was following her around. She went on this hunt alone and he tracked her to make sure she was safe!

Sam you weird stalker. it's a good thing you're both in this fucked up line of business so you can't really like... get a baseline sense of normal to judge this all by so she might not find it as invasive as it seems :P

"You think I'm being over-protective?"  
"Little bit!"  
Listen, he has no idea how to be in a relationship anymore.

-

We go to a new scene so I'm starting to think with the concise, almost wordless nature of the opening and the swift conclusion of that sequence, that this may thankfully not be Buckleming, and if it is, it's Buckleming with a good director. 

(if it's Buckleming and Singer I'm going to scream)

-

Eileen eating a burger and Sam eating a salad. Pffthaha.

Opposites attract and in this world, opposites have been defined in a binary form between Sam and Dean... like that meme about "which gender are you" and then 2 hairstyles on a silhouette that could be Sam and Dean, pretty much is how this universe divides itself. 

-

DEMON TABLET? COME ON YOU GUYS.

I'm still pissed about the angel tablet translation but I got so worked up about it last season and I can't remember what happened re: that whole thing because I may have written too much about it and my memory is jumbled with should-haves and what-ifs, and not very much canon.

So let's just go with a translation being one thing but the tablet still contains a hefty lump of god juice, which, you know, you could load into a special gun and fire the tablet like a great big square bullet into Chuck. 

-

At least if you let me write the end of the show.

-

Aha. Buckleming, buuuuuuuuuutt - Speight is on the job. 

Hence, random violence, we're already killing and exploiting women, Sam is being weird about Eileen, but at least this is all snappy and kinda fun to watch. 

And of course I powered through a minute or two of the opening and OF COURSE Buckleming go bck to an old favourite of the demon tablet, their buddy the prophet who they nepotismed onto the show, and we're once more on the endless loop of getting a tablet out and waving it at the problem. 

-

Oh and of course, Cas is back working with them and Dean like pretty much nothing happened, so all the work crafting their relationship in intricate detail and now it's like bam bam bam passing days, events happening everywhere, and we see Cas just standing next to Dean as TFW provides a united line up against Donatello.

-

One of the things that Buckleming episodes do that irritates me and does so more and more now that I saw it, is having characters provide a ridiculously united front, where Sam and Dean, or SamDeanandCas all stand in a row and talk in absolute hivemind at a problem. Other writers balance characterisation and personal issues throughout, but since TFW are of one mind here, they're just going to all stand in a row and talk at Donatello. 

-

I genuinely feel like I just winced through the whole opening with held breath waiting to see who was writing it because something in me KNEW I was due Buckleming but I was really hoping that the early signs were not them.

Now I'm just stressed that whatever Adam has to do with this is like a third separate thing from what Chuck is up to and what TFW are up to.

(Also why has Eileen disappeared from this scene - she's plenty terrifying, she can help intimidate him! At least have gender parity in your nonsense!)

-

Anyway. Guess the plan is locking God up once again. "best thing to do is toss him in solitary"

This is just perpetuating the cycle. Maybe it will delay it for zillions of years but I sort of feel like that's still not where we want to be going with this. We want a clean ending...

-

Speight filming this like the cartoon it clearly is actually is taking the edge off quite a lot though. He knows this is silly, so he's making it silly.

-

The thing is, I don't do these notes to recap the episode and right now I'm 10 minutes in already and I got nothing to do if I'm not recapping. 

because buckleming sure are recapping a lot of plot and doing that thing where they recontextualise a bunch of stuff so if you say it all together at once like this it seems it might be in alignment with canon. 

I mean Chuck literally dropped in to talk to them and then dipped back out and it's all just plot plot plot, but nothing, like, clever? Revealing? Symbolic? Ominous? Any of the things I really dig in the story have happened at all.

-

This is the second episode where Cas has had "READY TO SPREAD" under him on the philly advert the illegal stream I'm watching has on its rip.

I'm starting to feel like the network is doing this deliberately.

-

Aha, finally they're wondering if Lucifer and Chuck may have been lying about Michael. Like, at the very least they could check in on him and ask him how he's doing after some time in the cool down room.

Finally, some characterisation! Dean snaps at Cas because he is hesitant to barge into a plan that will get everyone they love killed (smart), and Dean's aggressive to him because this sucks. But it's demonstrating at least that this ongoing rift still has Dean annoyed at Cas from the earlier stuff and they have not healed their bond at all despite earlier standing shoulder to shoulder in the characterisation free zone. 

-

This is better framing: Dean sulking at the lonely seat at the table, Cas on the clear other side of the table, as Sam and Eileen, power couple, prepare the powerful spell.

-

Aashjdfskjfhsdkf Dean does the blood part, and Cas comes over and heals his hand. With his waning grace! AAAH! They stand shoulder to shoulder but at an angle where they're really not looking at each other. And the touch is so hover-y and not touchy touchy like so much of the rest of Cas's healing.

Cas wants to keep his distance, emotionally, for his own good, but he can't resist reaching out to Dean and at the very least offering his power to heal him, to keep an Official Distance but not to let go of the care entirely...

Ugh, this absolutely belongs on my list of times they do awful repressed hand clenching things like in Pride and Prejudice, just because Cas is so careful not to touch, when we know he can and will press his whole hand to Dean to heal him if he wants. 

-

Oh, wait, Eileen was just in the scene to be the sexy lamp and watch it all happen??

Like, they know she's competent as a fighter but they narratively can't respect her in an episode to come along and be a part of the big stuff??

I'm still pissed at how they killed her off, and not sure I even like them writing her at all. It's like when they write AUCharlie now after what they did to our first one.

-

Glad that Cas confidently knows his way around Hell still.

-

Within a second of the fight with these demons starting, Sam seems to be knocked out and Cas is on his back XD

"ARE ANY OF US WINNING?" Dean yells in frustration, rolling before getting to his feet.

-

I guess because more time passes in Hell than on earth, there's time to teach the new demons jujitsu before they're promoted to Hench Demon.

-

Oh, Sam wasn't knocked out, but now he's being choked :'D 

TFW more like Team Fights Wimpily.

-

MY QUEEN.

-

There *will* be no new *king* of Hell. Sam spoke it into existence.

-

I can't imagine it was hard for Rowena to become Queen because Hell has been made pretty useless lately anyway, but it's also totally on brand for her to be able to do this in any incarnation of Hell.

-

How did they... not think about Chuck opening all the doors and therefore Michael being wherever he wanted to be by now. 

-

Oh my god. Rowena saying "did you not hear the man?"

The winchesters have a whole new dynamic with Hell and it's the best it's ever been. This is amazing.

-

A wiiink. 

-

Poor Eileen left to watch the burny thing. One of her old friends sees she's online and calls her in amazement, Eileen is ready to go.

Love an independant woman who just puts a sprinkle more burny stuff in the brazier she's watching and heads off to fight monsters. 

Bucklemming better leave her the heck alone. A hair on her head and I'm coming for you two. *cracks knuckles*

-

I mean there's wildly low stakes for Sam and Dean and Cas all getting trapped in Hell together, considering Rowena is the Queen now, so despite how this looks like flagrant disrespect to your burny thing watching duties, way more concerned about bad stuff happening to her on the hunt, hence the opening where Sam was being over-protective.

I mean how does this go, Buckleming? You do something bad to her to break her confidence and she ends up glommed anxiously onto Sam, always wanting her brave protective man to look after her? 

It's not like she needs a vindicating hunting win to bolster her, she's thrown herself back into life with vigour and determination. At best this could be that she gets over confident and admits she's been over-doing it since getting back just because it is traumatic to be dead and resurrected and to have been in Hell and so on. But I don't want this to be a Thing between her and Sam with that opening scene making it about him now being over-protective, especially as they never doubted her capabilities before.

-

Ugh I just went and lay face down in bed for a while but there's little time left before the end so I'm doing this with a headache against my better judgement :P 

I'm all in now 

-

Love the redecorating Rowena has done here.

-

Sam tries to apologise for killing her, but she's not having it.

She misses sex, and having always been very sex positive is happy to say so - Dean of course is the one who gets a reaction shot to that. Honestly I don't know why he seems surprised and uncomfortable... She already teased him about fourth base, he should expect her to be like this :P 

-

Oh, Amazon will deliver. Bezos in the SPN world is for sure some sort of eldritch abomination.

-

be great if 15x20 randomly turned into taking him down.

-

"I should have died a long time ago!"

Sam really does not know what to make of THAT.

She beckons him over to refill her drink right after talking about her subjects fear and revere her. Sort of proving she's making Sam crawl around for her too. In a way she enjoys and I kinda think he does too. Lingering shot of him taking the glass and brushing her hand... Maybe they're going to have a sort of amiable discussion as adults here that he may have dug her but now she's dead this is a step too far for conducting a relationship between Winchester and Queen of Hell (you have to have standards, DEAN) and he'd rather see how things go with Eileen...

-

Wild that I can actually type these things about Samwena and Saileen in this moment in time. I'm so happy that my Sam ships are the nonsense going on here.

-

Er she just sent Sam right out of the room?? to talk to Dean n Cas?????

Because Buckleming are so unsubtle so if they KNOW that Destiel is going canon and Berens sat and churned out the Cas confession speech on day one of this season and read it to the class after, then everyone wrote everything else knowing that was coming.

So of course Rowena stopping everything to ask Dean n Cas what is up with them is one of those utterly blatant things that would have made me scream in frustration back in the time before we knew it was canon, that she was making a whole scene about it. Like, literally and figuratively. She's trapped them like rabbits in the headlight, and they're all at least a little intimidated even if she was a good ally and friend by the end, just because the changed circumstances and all make it a shade more dangerous than normally hanging out with her.

yeah she calls herself "Auntie Rowena" to them, putting herself a generation above them both (lol @ Cas being included in that, but, emotionally, he does seem to fit in this bracket sometimes.)

-

"It's fine" they chorus.

Well at least they can agree on that :))))

Sam having got up and left, putting an empty seat between them, makes this SUCH a marriage counselling shot.

And I mean this is directed by the Prophet of Destiel and it's freakin canon so this unsubtlety is now just part of the narrative of the storytelling of how this all happened and was brought to us, so no further comment needed on extrapolating that this could be an intended reading or whatever. 

-

I will note that as of this Wednesday the drama is about if Dean reciprocates, and on top of 12 years of canon happenings which strongly suggest it's mutual, an episode where he had a male ex in all implications with that overwhelmingly homoerotic death scene, I find it hard to believe that they can be like well all this Destiel stuff is valid on Cas's side but we're just fucking around with the Dean stuff, that's just for fun.

And so having this scene where the two of them are mutually saying the exact same thing to Rowena about how they feel about each other and this fight (aka it's not fine but they're not ready to talk about it, they're BOTH hurting and feeling bad from the break up and both feel it WAS a break up, because this scene doesn't work as marriage counselling if it's not a pact we all go into that this is what we are doing) means that I feel pretty confident this scene alone, with the context of knowing Destiel will be canon soon, is enough to say it's mutual.

-

"Fix it!" 

She accepts that being Queen of Hell has been a transition, that death has affected her and put an end to her emotional journey, in a way. She's won, yes, but the cost was her tether to life, and the lack of it is something she feels, she understands not having a body, access to the living world, etc etc. It's enough for her to have wise words about sorting your shit while you're alive to make the most of it.

For example, to have flesh to flesh sex while that option is still on the table.

I mean - well, i guess Dean n Cas should bang on the map table so no I am not clarifying that sentence's logic.

-

Cas, being canonically in love with Dean at this exact moment (AAAH) glances over at him, wondering how in the hell he could confess to him, especially if it would only make him more miserable knowing that if he was happy he'd be whisked away to the Empty.

Like

here's a thing about that: I need to re-evaluate Cas's behaviour since the deal because I am now convinced that the deal was a Moment in the Destiel behind the scenes, that the terms of the deal always made us go !!! about if it might be something that when it paid off would be a Destiel moment, in the old understanding of things that implied feelings rather than. Confession. But if Meredith and Bobo, a dynamic duo who've been serving good Destiel all along and especially since buddying up for a few episodes here and there, were driving this along, the concept that the deal only pays off as confession, and that Cas is written as knowing this, that he is in love with Dean, that the Empty teased him way back that it knew who he loved and then decided to make this deal to snatch it the happiness of it from him... 

Now we have to accept that Cas has been acting in ways to sabotage his own happiness and avoid confessing to Dean ever since, simply to avoid the deal as much as any other motive. That times when he COULD have said something, all his previous reticence and repression had the easy excuse of the deal added on top, and so because he could not tell Dean about the deal, and could not tell Dean he loved him, there have been moments of his behaviour that have contributed to the way Dean acts towards him.

I still think Dean has been a total dick towards Cas through much of the fight, with his own trauma and issues clouding his ability to sympathise with Cas, but I guess the fact that Dean worries to the end that Cas doesn't feel feels like people do, means that Cas being double reticent to show his true feelings just makes it all even worse for Dean to understand him through the last season or so...

-

Anyway Sam returns to an awkward room.

maybe overheard it all but at least wasn't involved.

-

Oh good, they've mislaid Michael.

-

MICHAEL

Omg just out there having a burger. 

-

OH NO IT IS ADAM.

Omg of course he's got the Winchester loves burger genes. 

And... Adam is Michllucinating Michael having chips with him because of course.

-

The theme of the red wagon in this diner means lots of childhood toys of red wagons around them. I know they're super iconic, but of what... I'm not sure. There's a red wheelbarrow poem but I think these are different things...?

-

Michael having a different voice to Adam is wigging me out. Especially because they're just chilling together??? Normally when characters have a dark mirror projected out from them, it's a bit more high stakes than how good chips and burgers are.

\- 

ALSO: See previous complaining about Sam and Lucifer and how since that was the form Lucifer went into the cage, that should have been the un-vesseled form he took on his return. 

Bah.

Buckleming fucked that up for the sake of Mark P and yet they still manage to do this, maybe just because Michael had so few other vessels.

It would be banananananas to have Adam chilling with young!John as the vessel.

-

Pizza too! 

Pizza is more of a family/shared meal by nature, so Adam sharing this with Michael, as much as that's possible, is... nice.

They seem like two very nice well adjusted lads, from this scene. Maybe there's a catch but it seems like they really did just become friends and now Michael is sitting back, literally, to allow Adam to devour human food for the first time in ever.

-

Michael not knowing what to do with himself. He still thinks that Chuck never showed. Fool!

But he's learned enough to know that the world has been left pretty messed up and bereft of the old system he once lorded over. With nothing to do now, he's lost his place in it. It's like, a story of someone who's just got home from a long time overseas or in prison I guess more accurately, who now has to find their place in a world that moved on without them.

-

To be clear, Michael did deserve time in Hell Jail for trying to cause an apocalypse and this is a good outcome for him to have mellowed, and not have a place. His place was apocalypses. With nothing to do on that front, as lost as he feels, it's to the benefit of everyone else as a whole that he doesn't know what to do with himself.

-

"Family"  
"Family sucks"

Aw, united under one purpose. 

Which, er, still doesn't bode well for the Winchesters if they get smitey but at least they're not going to apocalypse anything? Which would be a fear everyone ELSE has about them.

I mean they might still cause an apocalypse but they're talking about purpose and where to go, so if they're found quickly, hopefully they can be reasoned with... :'D

I'm glad both of them are immediately out there on the screen and we can see how they're both doing. 

-

Huh, okay so TFW are just back from Hell so I guess Eileen just grabbing her bag and going hunting wasn't really a drama thing anyway?

No idea what that was about if everyone's back wandering around the bunker doing normal plot stuff.

-

"Eileen did good, getting us back from hell"

Did I hallucinate her getting a call and leaving to go hunt

-

Oh poor Sam. Dean is giving him the "marry that girl" speech.

He specifies that he had been in a bad place but seems to be feeling better now. I'm not sure how much the last couple of episodes really helped except for exposing things he needed to confront about himself. Maybe having some hope vs God is also boosting him a little. He does feel better with a plan. I like to think he also is feeling better about not jinxing it just because he's also thinking that maybe Rowena is right and Cas will come around and they can have a talk about all this with him and make up and smooch and - 

well, he doesn't know about Cas's deal so he can think that anyway.

-

Oh my god, Adam stares sinisterly around the diner at all the human people going about their business and - 

"I should get a job"

lol lol lol

He doesn't want to go back to college, because this seems weird and that's a long-term plan for someone who's still figuring out being back in the land of the living and possessed by the arch angel Michael. But some spare change wouldn't hurt.

Unlike Lucifer needing stuff, Michael has his vessel out and chatting to him, and they're coming up with rational, normal, BORING IN A GOOD WAY plans.

No apocalypses, no talk of vengeance, all quite balanced and...

Hi Lilith. Great. Leave these guys alone, they are, bizarrely, being presented as the most well-adjusted characters on the show right now. If you ruin that for them I'll be very annoyed.

-

ADAM BOUGHT CAAAAKE.

-

Sorry, typing that as Michael goes full archangel "I'm not accustomed to being fetched" spitting out the words grittily and dark but all I see is fluffy frosting and chocolate sprinkles in front of him :'D

-

Oh no, Lilith is about to tell him that it was Chuck who sent her. Bye bye well-adjusted having a good day Michael and Adam.

-

Omg he's so season 5 in his attitude to her :'D 

"Speck of... infernal BILE" 

Grow up, everyone's had a demon friend. This is Chuck's!

Because Chuck is making great life decisions right now.

-

I just remembered that Rob Benedict is in this episode and not for nothing they are going to have to pay him for appearing in it and we're 24 minutes in and he got 30 seconds so far :'D 

Buckleming costing the show a fortune just with all the actors it hires.

-

LOL DID HE JUST VAPORISE LILITH OUT OF THE STORY?

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

-

Brilliant. 

-

I think she did get a few seconds more screen time than Chuck but he's more of a big ticket character :'D

-

Anyway, adoring that Michael is still so old school archangel and it's actually really coming across well in this scene.

-

It was also kind of him to blast Lilith without burning out everyone's eyes. Angels have really refined the technique there.

Please just go back to eating cake like nothing happened.

-

Aw "remember nothing" but then he has to push the cake away, his appetite for being chill spoiled, Adam pushed down as Michael, having dealt with Lilith alone, is now brooding on what this all means with his father etc and doesn't consult his vessel again, and of course in rejecting the cake means their little lunch date is over, and he's...

Well, hopefully not planning an apocalypse, as a best case scenario, but no one's getting a quiet diner job any time soon D:

-

Oh GOOD SHOT going from the map table in a swoop to Cas sitting in a nice quiet spot by the chess board. They're trying to lure Michael here, and to do so... the map of the world, and the chess board, both tactical maps for planning or rehearsing and honing battle strategies. Cas sitting here has the black side towards him: Michael has to make the first move as white if he were to join Cas, which is what they're trying to accomplish by bringing him to them rather than going to seek him out in Cairo.

-

Guess he's loading up on holy oil or some shit because he doesn't know the Winchesters have like, an underground factory churning out all the basic reagents they need for this stuff. Just go to them if you need a shotgun full of holy oil caspules or whatever.

-

Cas's pause after "our last meeting was........ unpleasant......................"

I lov ehim

-

Oh that was a good chilling speech to Michael. That sounds like all the right words. 

I wonder if Cas rehearsed it or if an angel power is being such a dramatic bitch you can pull something like that out when you're praying. I mean the 6x20 narration was like this intense and that was a prayer. SO.

-

Flappy Michael! It's always fun to be one of the few angels who was protected from the Fall and still has rockets on your feet.

-

He looks so scary but Cas has been having a good run of episodes. I hope he doesn't have any holy molotovs in his pocket.

I also dread that this intensity might dissipate at any moment, knowing the writers of the episode, and this will become a treatise on the word "assbutt" or something.

-

Oh dear, Michael is not taking to the new reality well. I guess to him Cas is just the next in the list of people from season 4 and 5 who have popped back up and sought him out as soon as he was free, and are all sort of giving him their pitch.

The Lilith thing may help Cas if he accidentally says something that corroborates her story, or it might make Michael wonder if this is some sort of prank the two of them cooked up together.

-

I mean everyone else was there to witness God slowly then all in a rush revealing his awfulness and suddenly openly delighting in the cruelty of his position as nihilism sets in on all sides. Michael wasn't even around for the FIRST time Chuck made himself known since the apocalypse, never mind being ready to believe this story after the shenanigans the rest of them were put through over the last few years.

Like, yes, being made to rot forever in Hell is awful, but it's very boring standard awful, while Chuck has been honing a fratricide narrative with a side of buckleming plot twists and horrific emotional torture that he's been making the rest run as an obstacle course non-stop since the apocalypse. 

-

"Oh, I didn't come to beg" *drops lighter*

Where is this badass Cas coming from? :'D Last episode and now this! Dabb was like, guys, we have one year left, we need to pile in as much Cas being a BAMF as possible. No more woobie Cas. if he's suffering, he's practicing self-care and going fishing. 

Dang.

-

Sam and Dean for sure discussed how they were going to do a synchronised entrance to look more terrifying.

The thing is... Does Michael even appreciate how scary they are? Stop bringing back villains who aren't scared of the Winchesters!

-

Oh wait, having villains who aren't scared of the heroes is probably better writing.

-

Cas isn't acting scared of Michael though. We have that.

-

Dean looking HIS Michael in the face, after practicing with AU Michael, and he can wave the angel handcuffs at him and handle this.

After all, this Michael never possessed him. He knows exaaactly how awful it is to be possessed by him, and maybe some of what the other Michael was like as a result, but this one, at least, he did resist with every last drop of his will, and is all the stronger for it.

-

"Mike" 

-

I guess everyone's furious or defiant, which is nice. 

However we now have a set up of TFW standing in a line looking at someone over a table AGAIN and my eye is twitching just slightly at the set up because we were having a really good run and if this is another 3 people talk with one voice at an opposing figure scene I'm going to gnaw off my arm and chase Buckleming with it.

-

Heh, Michael has so much catching up to do. Last time he saw Sam was in the cage. Yeah try scoring points with him over that you dick. He is very good at compartmentalising these days.

-

Quite interesting to do the thing where they talk to the vessel except, like, they not only have a preeeeetty messed up relationship with the vessel as well, but also the vessel is pretty much in one mind with the angel so... 

-

"Michael lets you... talk? He lets you be?" Dean asks. Good delivery on the line to add the weight that yes, THIS Michael does, and Dean is beyond surprised given his own experience of being utterly crushed by the same-ish entity.

-

Dean says there's no words and Adam says, what about sorry? 

Like, sometimes it is that simple... Maybe you might think it's a yawning abyss that can never be bridged, but the other person would find sincere apology a start to actually making up for it. 

I mean the objective view that they were trying to stop the dang apocalypse can be weighed in there, as long as they're not callous about it.

-

Michael gets very dark and then Adam jumps back in like, hey, give it a rest guys, he's not listening. And suddenly he's in charge, like, wow. I don't think Dean can hardly trust it's Adam just because he has it so easy over Michael.

-

Yup, now Adam/Michael are left alone for a minute, Adam is arguing that they do actually try to do the right thing even if, like, he's the shining star of their collateral damage problem, both in the scale of how fucked he was and how closely related he is to them.

Having a zillion years of cage time has made Adam pretty smart in a learning from his mistakes way, huh? He's quickly rationalising his way through what Sam and Dean would earnestly say and believe, and coming to the conclusion that he may hate them for what happened to him, but that they were also right and he didn't listen before. 

(And as a consequence of that they dealt him one of the worst cards dealt on the show.)

But as Adam has so much less personal baggage with them, what with having only met them once, he can do this, while Michael is being asked to believe that of the two of them, he would expect himself to have gone mad before GOD turned to cruel puppetry for his own amusement. 

Obviously being the butt of it in the sense that God dealt him just as shitty a hand as the winchesters dealt Adam makes it hard for him to accept. Because of all he was promised versus what ended up happening. No paradise, just locked in a box, and eventually emerging to be asked THIS of him.

-

Adam is preeeeetty brave to say "maybe you don't know your dad as well as you think you do" but on the other hand, so much time with Michael and no one else... I'm sure they've tested each other's limits far worse than this...

-

Michael being unable to even doubt God. Like. Season 1 Dean managed to get over this at times and argued back with John at the end of the season. 

Get your shit together, Mike. The whole story has moved on from when you were relevant to it.

-

OH Eileen didn't leave before, NOW she's getting the call to go help with that hunt.

Aaand her friend was attacked on the call, so of course she has to go NOW.

Wow that was not clear, it really looked like she up and left mid burny-thing-watching :'D

-

Aww Eileen gets Sam to go with her. Much better. She doesn't run off on her own, it's not so much a test on her. Phew.

Wow I was anxious about how bad they could do this. I think that takes the edge off..?

-

I also love how much sign she used in a panic and Sam signed back, like, realising she might be too freaked out to waste so much time concentrating on lip reading and he knows enough to communicate coherently with her by now :') 

-

Oh my gosh is Cas having a one on one with Michael again and Michael is like "I'm not going to betray my father" as the opening - please let Cas use this as a chance to expound some of his philosophy on doing the right thing.

Which may/will involve giving Chuck a bloody nose.

-

"Why not? He betrayed you" Same thing Adam just said, and while yes Buckleming repeating exposition between scenes is an issue I think this actually a good repetition in order to drive home that, like, everyone thinks this Michael. You're kind of a joke around here for how freaking loyal you were.

Like you were a joke in season 5 but boy has the look not aged well either.

-

"I never really liked you. Even when I was just another angel." 

heh. I know that's not what Cas means but by accidental implication, he's saying he's a SPESHUL ANGEL now.

I mean he is special.

-

Lots of tilted cameras in this scene. Things are dangerous and off-kilter... 

-

"You had an entire oak tree shoved up your ass"

I like to believe this is what Cas MEANT by "assbutt" but his grasp of human insult was limited and perhaps it was an enochian transliteration, and NOW, 10 years later, he is fully fluent in human bullshit so he can say THIS with elegance and poise.

I have never been more proud of him, retroactively to his confession speech to Dean

-

Nya ha ha Cas coming in with "I PITY YOU"

You are being immolated all over again Michael and he doesn't even need a holy molotov to do it.

-

Holy shit Cas is letting him have it.

-

Lol angel catfight. Like when you're just sitting there chilling and then suddenly fur is flying and they're yowling... 

Anyway Cas uses a Buckleming card to skip to the end of the argument by just showing Michael everything that Cas has seen about how awful God is.

Interestingly, I'm preeeetty sure we got a couple of flashes of Metatron's typewriter in there from Metafiction, the conversation with Gabriel where Cas is like "what if I fail" - at least, those lines are there for sure, and I'm very certain that's where they're from but maybe he said the same thing elsewhere and I don't remember. 

But like.

I am pretty sure that Cas just mixed in Metatron with Chuck. Same deal, bigger scale.

Is any of this real?

-

Aaaah Dean walks around the corner into the kitchen, and Cas is sitting in the Loser Seat at the table, having a melancholy moment. 

Aw, they talk about Michael, not their feelings. At least Dean's not openly hostile, just pretty grumpy. This is an improvement. 

Cas saying "we didn't bond" has the wry memory of talking about his relationship with Dean in terms of a bond. And obviously Michael could have used Dean as a vessel so there's the connection there, Cas finding it sort of funny that he loves Dean so much (even though he's a dick) but he hates Michael (for being a dick).

-

Uhoh, earthquake in the Bunker.

-

I hate how these episodes are always cut for time around the end. So much Donatello stuff and yet Michael has his big wobbly and is like "I'm not even the only Michael" and then we get an instant transition to the Sam and Eileen stuff like, practically as he's still speaking. No room for the drama to breathe >.>

And not enough time in the episode for this Eileen plot to even be here. She should have been integral to the main story or not in this episode at all and it's so frustrating to see her put to the side in this way, where her and Sam are building a lovely thing and of course we are basically getting a fight at the start and a fight at the end to demonstrate it. 

-

Oh, thank God it was all just a trap to make Eileen say "thank God" so that God could show up and this would at least be a plot relevant thing and Eileen WAS relevant and they were lured off for PLOT reasons. PHEW.

Did I just get tricked by how poorly Buckleming structure some episodes into actually having a real twist thrown my way.

I'm... not sure they intended that themselves but the author is dead which means I can appreciate it nonetheless as a good moment :P 

-

nOW a back and forth between these two sequences will feel a bit less random.

-

Wait wait if they're doing to Chuck what was done to Amara, won't they need a Mark, like, Of Cain, to do it?

Michael handing over the spell might not be the victory they thought...

-

Oh, oh no, Purgatory? Oh no. 

-

I feel attacked that it's Dean n Cas here worrying about it while Sam and Eileen are off in their own problems...

-

Uuuuh 

"Since when do we get what we deserve" and then he smiles at Dean, glances over at Cas, and nods at him. 

Oh boy. If Destiel were to go canon this season I sure would read a lot into that as Cas being absolutely miserable about being in love with Dean and STILL not being able to tell him that, and Dean still being a miserable bastard who can't get past his own problems to make nice with Cas.

Though he's markedly improved over the last few episodes from where he was when Cas stomped out on him - I think Lee helped a lot - and him reaching out to Adam does yet again show a mark of his character, and with so little time left in the show as a whole, and with Dean having been a grumpy asshole for a lot of it, he does need a lot of these concluding character moments where he overcomes from where he sunk to that lowest point recently, in order to prove he is as good as Cas will eventually say he is.

Not, like, that I saw that scene a zillion times since the madness of that night. Cough. 

-

Aw yessss, Dean and Cas looking mournfully at a purgatory portal together. 

How on brand of them. 

And, kindly enough, Buckleming didn't cram all of what would be next episode into this episode, and the thing stops here. Hooray!


	9. 15x09

15x09 watching notes

Are you ever so grateful for the shitty THE ROAD SO FAR text from 2005 still proudly emblazoned on our season recaps?

-

Oh yeah, this season had a lot happen in it already, huh?

-

Wait, I think I heard that this is Bobo, or at least, long ago in the mists of time I saw shrieking about Purgatory and Destiel and Bobo in this season and I'm assuming Dean n Cas do their assigned mission to go to Purgatory together, which is basically relationship therapy I guess? It's also a midseason episode so it can only be Bobo or Dabb at this point, right?

-

Back to Chuck's "Don't think about the pink elephant" casino.

I never did work out what that might be about, but it sure is a big pink elephant.

Maybe

Just maybe

it's a fuck you to the Johnlock conspiracy fandom and they had this whole thing about elephants and the """elephant in the room""" which was supposed to be their ship, but turned out to be a single sight gag joke at the end of the show with a literal room with an elephant in it. But before Moffat got to that most heinous ending, the fandom did use it as a sort of code for shippy stuff. 

Obviously this is a scene about Chuck, opening on Sam and Eileen, so I'd have to assume the pink elephant we're not supposed to think about is probably not canon Destiel, even in a season with canon Destiel. 

I would probably say if you pressed me that it's a reference to the drunken dream sequence in Disney's classic "Dumbo".

-

So glad Eileen is in as many consecutive episodes as this.

-

OH WHAT as I was typing that Chuck was like HEY, DO YOU LIKE THE GIRLFRIEND I MADE YOU, SAMMY? LOOK, I CAN CONTROL EVERYTHING. 

Just like all those easy hunts earlier, of course getting Eileen back and starting to bond with her was Too Easy and Chuck was just setting this up to once more smack Sam with the plunger.

So of course, we have the parallel to what Dean is going through with Cas organically, where Sam's whole relationship with Eileen is thrown into turmoil because of how engineered it suddenly feels :<

-

Chuck being the first person to really reference Eileen being Deaf and as a snark at her - of course she gets a "Screw you!" in at him, but it's like... He's already the worst, let's throw in some casual ableism while we're here juuuust to put a cherry on top of all his other previously documented crimes. 

-

He's gonna ... cut the wound... out of Sam???

I know he's god but that just seems silly.

-

In the background, Eileen, who he's ignoring, starts seriously rocking her chair about trying to get free. I would love if she is the one who saves them from this because Chuck's fixated on Sam and has completely turned his attention from this person he ressed as a bit part to spy on them for him and get him access to Sam. She still has her free will even if Chuck messed with fate and events to get her here. She can still choose to resist even after discovering that her new lease on life, probably from getting free of their anti-ghost bubble in the first place right up to walking naked from the bath tub into Sam's arms, is all a product of Chuck's scheming.

-

Cas working the shotgun bullet press is so hot.

20 MULE TEAM BORAX in the background. What a brand name.

The kind of brand you almost expect to see hunter small print on the back advertising its use in getting leviathan off of things.

-

I literally forgot that Alex Calvert is credited as Alexander Calvert on this show and had a full second blinking like "who is that and why is their name familiar?"

MY BABY NOUGAT IS COMING HOME

-

Eileen trying to play a fast one on God. :'D 

Would have been a great trick if he wasn't ... what's like, halfway between omnipotent and not? Semipotent. 

Chuck also sucks because he said "Come on Eileen" to her and the no.1 rule of a friend with a song name is not to ever quote the song name at them ever. Like, even if you're just talking about the song in a normal context you'd bring the name up :P

-

But at least Dean has now got an indication that they're in trouble and not just off boinking somewhere and forgot to leave a note they were out for the night.

-

Eeee Lisa Berry! 

-

Omg how dare he smash Eileen's phone. He's being beyond horrible to her.

-

AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA

Cas losing it for a moment. "Dean, will you just stop... stop being so stupid!" 

The badass Cas of the last few episodes can't be restrained... He's here to stay now :D

Anyway I think this is something that Cas really needed to express, especially as it's Dean's impulsive behaviour which has been causing a lot of these rifts between them. Dean gets very worked up and absolute on things and of course Cas is trying to play the long game. He points out not just that they have to go to Purgatory but that Chuck can't kill Sam personally because... that's not the ending he wants. He WANTS fratricide, so Dean fucking off to Purgatory legit is safer for Sam than Dean going to collect him from the casino.

And of course Cas needs to be able to express things to Dean about when his behaviour is crossing lines... I don't think calling him stupid is a long term solution but it's a sharp stop to reset the argument.

-

"That's the way we'll save Sam, and that's the way we'll save the world." 

Cas also knows the order to put priorities in for Dean's brain.

-

Can Chuck not actually... touch this wound.

I guess Chuck is worried this will bounce back on him again?

Sam teasing him for not wanting to get his hands dirty... Lol. Not sure if it's an emotional thing or a magical reason. It's even better if Sam's actually right and Chuck is squeamish. 

Or bad at surgery and doesn't know what he's doing.

Anyway Sam laughed at a vengeful God, right in his face.

And then Eileen called him pathetic and jutted her jaw at him like fuck you.

-

Oh, FUCK YOU Chuck for making Eileen attack Sam.

-

Waaaaaah

-

Heeey they're in Purgatory! 

Time to get the squad back together?

"Maybe we'll run into Benny. He's probably king of this place by now."

I WISH. Bobo brought Benny back for season 10 as a vision... Not sure what sort of message it is not to put Ty in the credits but then also introduce him back in the episode as a surprise but only after Dean vocalises out loud that he wants to see Benny again and hopes he's had the same glow up as Rowena.

I kinda feel like it's not going to have gone so well for him >.> Who knows if he survived past the last time he was seen on camera as an alive being... I keep my hopes low there. Pleasant surprises only, no disappointment.

Anyway Dean wishing Benny back in his life right after reconnecting with Lee, who had the round-faced gruff brawler type as Benny, makes me sad. Dean has a couple of types and they share a part of the venn diagram together.

-

Dean suggested they split up in Purgatory? Wow. He really doesn't wanna hang with Cas. 

Cas already did this whole thing when they were there the first time. He's just like no. come on. 

-

Oh Sam, talking Eileen through it as Chuck tortures them. 

"I know it's not you"

As if we need more crypt scene layers.

-

"HOW ARE YOU STILL LIKE THIS????"

Chuck doesn't like Sam being peppy, but bad news: Bobo Sam is one of the best Sams in the whole ding dang show, and he is inherently peppy and sassy and will destroy you just with smugness, Chuck. 

Like, yes, Sam is dark as fuck, but he also is kind and loving towards Eileen even in this horrible moment, AND spares some braincells for sassing Chuck and then some more for having hope in Dean n Cas to do this plan...

Can Chuck just not handle how great the human spirit is? And Sam as a wonderful embodiment of it, but still in many ways just a normal man forged into this by the fire?

-

I could listen to Cas bitching to Dean about his sense of direction forever.

"My sense of direction is excellent; that's a different corpse."

What. A. Sentence.

Cas's delivery on the line. Just. Chef's kiss. Bored and dismissive of Dean while distracted looking around trying to actually focus, and yet still invested enough to dispassionately explain he can't be wrong and therefore it has to be another corpse. 

-

Leviathan time!

-

LOL they were just pretending to have a couple's fight about the corpse in order to bait the leviathan out.

Dean concedes the argument to Cas once he's flung the leviathan into a nearby tree.

Wonderful.

-

You know, I think it's sweet when two men go for a nice walk in the woods to find a flower, I don't know what Dean's complaining about.

-

Oh, gross, they're what come out of dead leviathans. They sound *lovely*.

I'll have a vase of them please.

-

Aw, Benny. :<

-

Chuck lecturing Sam on how even if they win they lose. 

-

Well this doesn't seem so bad in the vision that Chuck's showing them. Dean is pretty blatantly into Cas and his arrival signals movie night, and Cas arrives with beer which is basically a sign he's all made up with Dean and the brothers are just living in the bunker together with their partners. Fluffy endgame stuff.

Oh no. Oh NO. JODY. What are you doing here??? OH NO. 

Claaaire D:

Okay so this has to be fake. 

Claire won't die like that, not on our watch D:

In Chuck's watch, maybe. 

This is also the least threatening clock I've ever seen in the sense that this is all pre-pandemic and it's trying to freak Sam out about Spring 2020.

Like, hey, Chuck, you "omniscient" fucker, I have news for you. Asshole. 

This is not the story's fault but does demonstrate anyway just how malleable time and fate are, and even if their world gets vampires and we get corona, I really don't think that anyone still standing in 2020 really believes that we can trust shit to keep trundling along and do as it's supposed to, huh?

-

I hate how Sam (present!Sam) looked so happy to hear that future!him was talking to Jody.

Waah.

-

How dare they bring Kim in to film this little snippet of saying Claire is dead.

-

I can't believe Chuck is threatening Sam with ... the passing of time... Like... That wasn't some ominous anything they unleashed. It's just... Knowing things continue and eventually everyone will die because... death happens.......... 

I mean it's sad and horrible to pick Claire and have it be so soon as something to show him, but if that IS the real future at the moment (and how can he really know what the REAL future is from any given point except that it's the one most likely to happen in that milisecond before more events happen and shift the needle) all it showed Sam was that they get cozy and then there's one small tragedy caused by vampires. Yes, it hurts, but no, it's not The End Times. 

I mean I hate it and would do anything to avert this because Jody's smol angry gay daughter does not deserve that at allll. But also. It was random. And unconnected to any real greater evil except local vampire issues.

-

Cas and Dean having a chat about Benny and what he meant while this grumpy leviathan walks ahead of them stuck in between their Deep Feels about stuff. 

Literally framed as walking between them. Showing us as a personified visual representation of the angry dark void full of teeth that is their argument.

Cas starts rambling about all the guilt he felt before. Then uses it to move to the things they're fighting about now. Aware of what Purgatory does to you and the feelings it will force him to confront, he's like... trying to get out in front of the train to address what he knows will be a problem. He's still most hurt about Jack.

Dean is not so emotionally fluent or ready to wrangle with Purgatory's very nature. That being that it purges you. Cleanses you.

Like, symbolically, sending fighting Dean n Cas here is a brilliant writing move. They have to hash things out and emerge purified in the sense that this fight will have been addressed at long last. They can move on and I would really hope from this point on they genuinely do get to feel like they've set some of these burdens down. 

Dean however is not being very helpful yet, part of his issues being that he can't move on, can't get over all these things, and so of course if it's to be addressed he has to start off bullish. Cas calls him on THAT as soon as he sees the behaviours repeating. 

Dean bringing out the line about Cas always leaving is so tired. He's been doing it for like nearly half the show now, aching about Cas not staying with them. Of course Cas running off in Purgatory the first time was a huge abandonment for Dean, one that sort of broke his brain until Cas made things clear later in the season. 

(All stuff Dabb wrote a lot of back in season 8)

And because it's a tired line, Cas can immediately shove past it and start jabbing back at Dean much harder, because it's a weak shield, when he must know that he drove Cas off.

"I left but you didn't stop me"

Oof, Dean.

And I guess that's part of what hurt Cas so much he left for as long as he did. 

Also: yes we know Cas is canonically in love with Dean through all this and Dean is most assuredly in love back. But spare a thought for the poor leviathan walking between them because they're once again in full couple's fight mode, at this point just getting right into lines from any romantic break up, and the leviathan has been subjected to all of this, and must be quite bemused about who exactly he's escorting through purgatory.

-

Okay, January 2021 seems to have a ton of random fire in it? It does look more like what we're expecting it to look like IRL in America so I'm not debating this vision.

-

Lol even in these fake visions of the future, Cas appears to be dead and of course it's like, Dean's got his big sad tearful connection to it and Sam's being somewhat insensitive just in the way that he wasn't as in love with Cas as Dean is obviously... Destiel in every frame, honestly.

-

Like, our Sam sitting in the backseat is horrified by the concept but not in a kind of, existential end of functioning for the next 6 weeks way like Dean was when Cas died last.

-

There's like a 50/50 chance those aren't leviathan blooms but are eggs that spawn from dead leviathans and when they try and pick them it sort of Alien face-hugs them.

-

Oh, lol, no, it was a break in case of emergency angel trap.

Or possibly Eve, listening through all her babies, got someone to make the trap around the blossoms so that by the time Dean n Cas got there they'd fall for it and walk right in.

Like, what was the chance there'd already be an angel trap just in case Cas came back and then they just happened to have the blossoms growing in them. 

Okay sometimes my first instinct is bad :P

-

I do find it funny though that they're being attacked to answer for season 6 & 7 crimes, but like, Eve had all that time to grab them in Purgatory before and never succeeded or raised enough of a problem for them before to even get mentioned.

Was she just sleeping off the attack all that time and this is the first time they've been back since she was recovered enough to mount an attack???

It does make me smile wryly, because Eve is a favourite of mine and I feel like the show criminally underserved her with the Purgatory stuff. She should have been a local antagonist there, but we just saw groups of leviathan attacking at random. They never even said something as simple as that they were trying to grab them for Eve? Even if nothing else was different in the whole sequence??? 

Yeah, the lack of even a name drop has been bothering me for yeeears.

-

Oh dang the leviathan skull is cool though.

they should take it back for Sammy so he can mount candles on it for his witch aesthetic.

-

Hey Dean how do you like running around Purgatory looking for your angel?

:3

-

Don't forget to at least pack the blossom in your bag before you go.

-

Okay so this 2021 seems kinda rough as a future for Sam but I stand by complaining that they're having it easy in comparison :P

This monster apocalypse that follows them winning sounds pretty bad... And YIKES at what happened to Cas. 

I was about to say, didn't Jack destroy the Malak box? But then I remembered Dean built the one they had in an afternoon with scrap he found in Donna's shed. [what, like it's hard?.gif]

Of course Dean took personal responsibility for handling that, and it's used in comparison to Sam losing Eileen. Of COURSE Dean is personally connected. 

It's the first few hours of Thursday here, now. Probably won't make it but I do wanna say that from where I'm sitting, I don't really see how Destiel could ever be one sided unrequited. Not with the way Dean is framed, acts, and is written about.

it's just a fact that he loves Cas back. If Bobo was bold enough to write Destiel going canon from Cas's side, then he's bold enough to portray in this episode, honestly more feeling and exploration of Dean's side of this all than Cas's. Cas is such a given that most of this SEASON has been on clarifying what the fuck is up with Dean.

-

In any case, Dean sadly saying that they lost, is just another Worst Ending, one that once again Chuck is using to dispirit Sammy. It is not the ending that they'll accept, not the ending the show can go out on.

And to underline that, Sam asks about Butch and Sundance, their plan to go out in a blaze of glory. How can Dean lay down his gun when they're supposed to have this ending that if nothing else, would be the end of the Winchester story? But with everything taken from them, all the characters the Bronlies hate, they're fucking miserable and know it's the bad ending. 

And now Sam has yet more to fight against. They have to thread the needle around THIS TOO.

-

And also the rona, when it shows up.

-

Chuck saving that from being spoiled until later because he doesn't want Sam investing money in a PPE company like a dodgy republican senator.

-

Lol, Sam debating the creator's vision because it's OOC and he doesn't like it. 

Chuck like, nope, this is my unhappy ending for you all if you win, so shut up. Don't like don't read.

-

Hi um wow so I just watched the whole next chunk with a hand sealed over my mouth and my other hand clenched in a rather painful fist, and no I did not pause to type anything or analyse anything, I just watch Dean cry all over the place for Cas. Summoning up the reserves to reach out to him like he did EVERY NIGHT IN PURGATORY going back to that old familiar "Hope you can hear me" he hasn't done since like ... ever. Has he prayed to Cas since 9x01? I don't think so??? Not properly?????? Oh lordy lordy this is right up there with Dean tearful prayers and speeches ever. Thanks Bobo.

(Destiel is requited canon both sides, shut up everyone, there's 2 tearful speeches from these fuckers to each other, one here and one at the end of the season and the one at the end has all the words Dean couldn't say and included I believe a slap upside the head from some of the stuff Dean said about himself here. AURGH.)

Good grief, well this explains all the screaming I saw around when this aired. Because the individual shots were not unfamiliar to me because they made it to twitter and my madly scrolling thumb trying to go past without absorbing any info. So now I have to find out this late in the game that Dean basically sobs out an entire thesis on his own character being angry and he hates it and he knew he was wrong but he lashed out anyway and he regrets it so much and...

... more importantly, he reaches out to Cas and genuinely apologises. Like Adam wanted last time. Just say you're freaking sorry and if you mean it, people generally take well to being apologised to and seeing that you understand that you fucked up, because that's always the first step to repair and correction. If Dean wants to be a better person, to be worthy of Cas, then this is what he had to see, and SAY TO CAS, to make that progress.

And it's been said and done now! We're at the midseason and Purgatory has done its job on this fight, has bled the horrible stuff out of their emotional wounds... Like how tears remove the excess emotion chemicals you can't handle, Purgatory not only wrung those tears out of Dean but as always has served its purpose to spiritually cleanse. And Dean has NEEDED this for some time.

-

Guess November 3rd 2021 Dean did not cry his bad feels out in Purgatory, and is ready to just, like, sit in his nice safe bunker and quietly drink himself to death while Sam goes for the bloody option >.>

-

Oh cool, now Sam knows how long he'll live in this horrible worst future.

-

Love the cut to Dean looking at his phone and wandering around. 

-

CAS!!!!!!!

Well that was... less dramatic than it could have been, in the sense that Cas is bloody but apparently just escaped fine. So he really did just get attacked by leviathan so that he and Dean could be separated long enough for Dean to break down and cry and apologise for everything, huh?

I love Bobo's interpretation of how to write a romance narrative.

I really do.

-

*hand slammed back to mouth as Dean goes in for the hug*

I am a rational being, a sensible, right-minded seeker of truth, and I knew. I KNEW. Yet still could not stop the "maybe they will kiss" gut kick.

How predictable is the mind of a shipper, honestly. 

You get spoiled that Destiel went canon and everyone's kicking up a stink in the middle of Biden's slow vote count to victory, because Cas got dragged to mega-hell without even a kiss because Dean was standing there thinking slurs at him, per the descriptions in wider twitter, and a week later you're back in deep catching up the show, still 9 episodes away from Bobo's apparent Destiel canon masterpiece, and........ 

are they gonna kiss tho

-

reader, they did not.

-

Dean FLINGS himself back from the hug, like, if I cling to him any longer I WILL smooch him and we do not have time for that right now.

-

Cas saying "smushed" is adorable after all the very intense language he's been using. Definitely up in the higher register and not dabbling with more vernacular words and sayings for a while. And then around Dean, he's like, "smushed" because he's smiley and happy again (insomuch as he can be without, you know, the confession, the one moment of true happiness, being eaten by the Empty, etc.)

-

I find it hilarious that Dean woke up in the spot where the blossoms were, but was so distraught about Cas he ran off without getting one, and then Cas, who had issues convincing Dean he was dependable, pulled off a badass move to get blossoms, while Dean was wandering around Purgatory crying.

-

Oh you know Dean could and would have said more if Cas let him.

-

I mean maybe staying in Purgatory and getting stuck and then eaten by leviathan just because you wanted to confess your feelings and snog the angel is a bad plan.

-

Thinking of bad, this is a season 3-ass looking room Sam and Dean are holeing up in to die in December 2021. The colours being so bright for the filter definitely contribute. Season 3 colours are garish but also high contrast, which looks really awful. Like, not the awful of how garish season 8 was, but far too much colour searing into your eyeballs after how stark the first 2 seasons were.

-

Oh ... yay? I guess Sam gets his butch and sundance ending like he... wanted?

-

Oh great, Sam and Dean have already been turned into vampires, and they're the next things to be hunted. 

Of course Dean kills Jody before they go out. 

-

Hahaha Chuck saying they deserved better than that ending. He's literally teasing them with a stupid bad ending that's one of his awful drafts, and he hates it because all the garbage is random awfulness and Sam and Dean die going out together like they wanted - albiet as vampires - but Chuck can't handle it because he wants something epic and high drama and feeling. He wants proper fratricide! Something fitting! And emotional and highly wrought! He wants there to be stuff in there he relates to with his overblown feelings about his own narrative being the best. He doesn't see how his drafts are just as bad, if not worse. At least there was free will involved there, even if it all lead to horrors. But that's what he does. Allegories for them about their choices and trying to manipulate them. This is straw man arguing. Deciding he's going to show Sam the worst ending first then walk backwards to it explaining how he gets to it from where they are, instead of walking from where they are and seeing where each step takes him.

As a writer, you can't just decide an ending, then try and force the story into it. 

And Chuck's got this bad idea for the story, tragic fratricide, he's fakely pitting against tragic tragedy, as if these are the two options. And these are the options fans of the show have been wishing for/dreading for years. Brothers fans demanding Butch and Sundance because it's almost intolerable to imagine Sam and Dean existing on beyond the story and having a life that isn't told within these episodes. Or for Chuck, beyond the pages of his books. And then there's the ending where they kill each other, where to stop anyone else playing with these toys, Chuck destroys them. it's sad, and awful, and over quickly, and then the franchise is done and dusted, and not only will it be hard to ever play with it again, after that story, who would want to?

True freedom at the end of the story is releasing them from the story but like... setting them out to pasture in the fields of everyone else's imagination. Let them run around free range and go to whatever stories they please after that.

The old guard of writing hates fan fiction and can't handle the existence of fandoms clamouring to have the characters released to them. Some shows hate it so much they'll do the imaginative equivalent of the murder-suicide, aka the end of Sherlock. 

-

I mean I'm pretty much now exactly 24 hours off being proven very right or very wrong.

I think I ought to sleep. 

just needed to get past all that Dean n Cas in one go :'D

-

Ugh, good morning *slurps coffee* Chuck is still the worst, why did I leave him on the screen so when I opened my browser this morning his cold dead stare was beaming out of it.

(Rob Benedict: lovely. Chuck: cold dead eyes. To be clear I am just commenting on the acting :P)

-

Chuck POWERED EILEEN DOWN IN A BROOM CLOSET.

What a Buckleming thing to do to your characters when you're bored of them and don't want to bother writing them doing anything better so you just... Put them aside without explanation, doing something utterly un-person like staring at a wall for 14 hours before they're needed back in the narrative.

Chuckleming. The art of being Buckleming within the story but written by someone else without.

-

Chuck really not selling that the ending he just showed Sam is inevitable by yelling at him about it like it's a threat - torture without physically hurting a character. It's an endurance test for Sam about how long he can keep the hope up, not how long he can physically endure the pain, since he's more than capable of doing that. Chuck losing it and screaming in Sam's face about "do you like that ending better??" really doesn't help suggest anything other than that Chuck just conjured it up in order to upset him though, since it's now just being used as a cudjel. 

-

Deancas spellcraft teamwork!! 

I love two idiots who are now back to being idiots in secret love with each other and not angsty broken up idiots in love with each other.

-

Cas glancing up at Dean while growling an especially gnarly enochian word: probably foreplay.

-

Oh wait, did the fact that this was literally going to give them the Mark something that was left unsaid last episode? Because I just realised that despite the fact that we did get Cas having the Mark in the dark future Chuck just showed Sam, it was somehow not discussed to death last episode. Maybe because, of course, the opening half of the episode was about discussing everything up to that point to death instead.

I mean, props if the show was trusting our intelligence but I did feel like it was an omission by Buckleming last time in the sense that I just expected them to have gone over it, and now it's almost being under-served this time because Dean n Cas, perhaps fresh off a cut Buckleming argument about it, don't even mention it until the literal moment of being prepared to do the spell, and then it's only which one of them will take it. I feel like Bobo maybe just assumed this would have been over-litigated already.

That, or, Dean n Cas are such idiots that they were far too obsessed with each other to think about this and while they both sort of instinctively understood this would be a consequence, it's only actually hit them right here and now that they actually have to think about said consequence. Like, yes, they both are fully dedicated to fucking Chuck over so it's not in debate they'd do it at all; they did set off on the venture to do it with such high stakes as leaping into Purgatory after all. Just... seems sudden in terms of the emotional weight behind all this and then we get nothing and then it's like oh hey one of us ought to take the Mark on, better be me, huh?

Just seems. Like 99% of this episode was dedicated to the romance and not enough to the plot when it came to them. 

Okay criticisms rescinded. Carry on, Bobo.

-

Sam yelling against Destiny and how he'll make it better when they win. He has to struggle to get there - the hope being twisted in his gut like the knife in his wound :(

-

The plot of this for Sam is literally Area Man Loses Additional Bit Of Hope He Didn't Even Know He Had.

-

I don't get how Chuck thinks that they'd stop breaking the rules after he wins that he might not find a way to avert it after all.

Like, they do manage to get one over on God every few days anyway. 

-

Is Chuck basically implying that the One Useful Thing he does ever is keep monsters tamped down? Like, do they just exude some sort of chaotic feral energy that is incompatible with God Energy but if he wasn't around then it would just be somehow a little easier for them to be awful?

-

He sure as hell isn't going out and helping hunt them on the weekends.

-

See also: all the previous discussion from the last episode or two, about Dean's moral divinity in the universe and how he is basically a force of nature handling the monster population himself. I don't think Chuck himself accounts for this in his future. Just, how unstoppable Dean's drive to save people is. Without Chuck, Dean steps in to be the beacon in this world and if its ultimate threat is monsters, and needing a strong source of pure anti-monster energy in the world to counter-act them... Dean might seem like one man, but narratively he's literally carrying God's actual burden in this department on his back already so why not.

-

Aw yesss Dean and Cas silent glance at each other. Moving back in tandem. Love it.

-

Did... Eileen smack Dean with a plunger?

... Aside from the emotional trauma to her, the fact she's waving a scalpel around instead of like a giant machete or something makes her seem way less scary.

"I don't want to hurt you!"  
*tackling Cas from stage left*

Eh, she'll be fine, he's an angel. He knows what he's doing.

I think.

-

Dean punches Chuck just for the sheer emotional satisfaction of it.

-

OH NO SAM CAN'T SMASH THE ORB. CHUCK WON THIS ROUND? SAAAAM :< :<

I guess it is the midseason, we can't have TOO Much self worth going on around here.

Dean n Cas you do realise that you resolving your shit sucked the narrative air out of Sam being able to take an easy win here? YOU DID THIS YOU ASSHOLES.

-

Chuck's manipulations are the worst because this is mid-fight and he can just stand there smugly and watch Sam crumple and Dean doesn't even understand yet how effective the manipulation was or what was done to Sam :( :(

-

OH COME ON CHUCK. I just remembered belatedly since I slept for 7 hours in the middle of the episode that Chuck needed to break Sam's will to get rid of the wound to return to full power, and so. Er, yes. That manipulation was all about making him lose hope not to convey anything about the future - he couldn't lock that shit down if he tried. It was all for short term gains.

-

At least I get to see Eileen with DAILY JACKPOT over her head because whatever else happened to Sam, at least she's so far scraped through so, er, consolation prize girlfriend?

-

"Take it easy on the kid, took a LOT to beat it out of him."

First of all, been a while since we had a villain who earnestly can call Sam a kid and it sort of rings remotely true. 

Second: fuck you forever Chuck you absolute monster.

-

Third of all: Alex Calvert was credited in this episode, and Lisa Berry, so I'm assuming we're just getting like a quick pre-credits scene of them sitting down scheming together? I remember they were out there ready to scheme to take Chuck down... I guess whatever they're planning together, it's something we can only see once the practical human attempts have failed and all the legwork TFW can put in with the Hope Endurance Run and the purgatory jaunt and all have tested them to their absolute limits.

Now baby nougat can swoop back into the narrative with some plans????

-

Dean accuses Chuck of having a "Galaxy-brained" plan, and I genuinely don't know if that was a term before the recent memes. Correct me if I'm wrong but is this something that could only have been picked up if you're at least somewhat Internet in the sense of us gremlins who doomscroll for days at a time? Is this what Dean's been doing in his room while sulking? Scrolling twitter? 

I mostly ask just because I wonder if people who AREN'T super Internet would get the full connotation of galaxy brain in the sense of the meme because it doesn't imply vastness and grandness without a healthy side of it being a wildly stupid OTT concept usually with a tenuous grasp on reality. 

SPN fandom's meltdown speculations before the 15x20 airing in these last few days/hours is galaxy brain thinking, for example :P Maybe not UNDUE thinking but certainly WIIIILD and spiralling out of control like the arms of a swirling galaxy.

-

OH NO they weren't drafts they were MEMORIES. AU Sams and Deans who toughed it out and did the deed before Chuck got bored and moved on.

At least this proves that where he can get a Sam and Dean going in the universe he sticks around to watch until they fratricide each other. Maybe they can cling to the loose hope that they can still trap him by fake-staging an entire fratricide character arc, a la Dean n Cas's fake couples argument to snare the leviathan earlier :'D

-

I'm sticking by that plan and I only hope the show is brave enough to do it.

-

In the short term though: yet more horror that Sam and Dean feel inevitably bound to this concept of fratricide. And how will they know that Chuck won't keep trying to manipulate them into it to get that sweet sweet brother angst pay off?

-

I can't believe this whole season is structured around yelling at the people who want a Sam n Dean tragic ending to stop being so dang morbid.

-

"not this Sam, and not this Dean"

Honestly they're so in deep in the cosmic nonsense... If no other Sams and Deans ever got as far as they did in actually meeting, confronting etc God, and why would they have, if it takes only one Chuck and one Amara in all the universe, and Amara only met Dean the once, so already everything from the end of season 10 onwards for example is beyond the pale for Chuck's normal drafts, hence why the plans circle around season 4-5 or as far as but not further than 10... Then it stands to reason that Dean is actually pretty accurate in assuming he and Sam are not just Speshul Because He Says So. They are Best Versions of themselves not just from the start and with any advantages they've been picking up along the way where flaws in Chuck's attempt hardened or taught them things that other Sams and Deans might have missed. It's that they're, for example, the only Sam and Dean who have parented Jack. The only Sam and Dean who have Billie as their Death if 10x23 is the latest possible fratricide opportunity and this Dean managed to not take it. 

Like, let's say most Sams and Deans, when Chuck manages to line the ducks in the row to get these fuckers born and then raise them up ready for this, so they don't get murdered too early, don't get separated by child protection services and boyking!Sam happens when he's like 16 because the whole situation is such a pushover... Like all things get them to at least season 1, and then you start narrowing it down: every time they try to kill each other, from MotW to John's orders and Dean selling his soul and what if Dean wasn't pushed far enough? What if he did what he was told because he was TOO loyal and like Michael and actually did shoot Sam to spare him the worst of it? What if in season 3 he really suspects Sam came back wrong and he and Bobby put him in the ground? What if he kills him in season 4, or Sam kills Dean in the fight in 4x21? And so on and so on, and things can change and are different each time, as Chuck tries some other mechanic or plot device out of cruel curiousity... 

How many Sams and Deans make it past the apocalypse, think they've won, only for the nonsense to unspool and they get the Mark of Cain involved, and that power overwhelms Dean?

How many times has Amara been connected to Dean by that Mark, felt him on one side of it as he felt her pushing back with all her fury at Chuck? Small wonder she was so fascinated to finally meet him - so many Deans had borne her mark, but season 11 is the first time she's unleashed and can meet the man who accidentally has championed her across universes. Because in all the other versions, Sam killed Dean or Dean killed Sam because the Mark of Cain, the Brother Killing symbol to end all others, was too much of a final hurdle to overcome... 

Then these fuckers actually beat it, and within a few months Chuck is spiralling so badly that he's forced to personally intervene for the first time since his little side role in the apocalypse, and it all immediately starts unspooling even faster for him. It gets personal between this Sam and this Dean and him. Now they're not just archetypes, they're RIVALS, fighting him for personal control of a story they never should have realised they were still playing.

It's like the Good Place - spoilers alert

...

But instead of Eleanor (and sometimes one of the others and even once Jason) realising that they're in the Bad Place with unfailing regularity, Chuck has been engineering this same game so many times for his satisfaction, pressing the button in the casino and watching the coins come tumbling out again and again and again. And then this ONE freaking time, the button gets stuck. 

In the Good Place, this realisation constantly pushed the characters forwards and Michael, who oversaw all of it, was the one changed most of all by dealing with them time and time again. And they worked together towards self-actualisation in the end. 

Of course, that was contained within a narrative and was always intentionally a sort of groundhog day thing.

This show has been like us seeing one groundhog day cycle for 10 years and then suddenly in year 15 it's like, oh by the way, this was all a groundhog day loop and you were on your zillionth tuesday but it's actually been wednesday for a while now. 

A sort of long-con of the storytelling that you can only do when things have got THIS meta and self-reflective. That you can actually SELL that the one character living the groundhog day loop is God Himself, and he's gone about as insane as anyone else who's subjected to such a thing. But we're not in his POV. We're in the POV of the groundhog. 

And somehow the loop where the groundhog was put behind the wheel of the car and then drove them all off a cliff is the one that Chuck's somehow ended up escaping the self-inflicted loop on. 

Like, no wonder he's pissed. There was supposed to be a story there, and it doesn't work if THAT is the version that time resumes ticking on, you know?

-

Honestly, Chuck not having a plan to write the universe past 2016 also explains a lot in recent global history, too.

-

Anyway I earnestly sat down with my coffee to try and make it through as much of this show as possible today and now I myself am galaxy-braining, but honestly, Bobo, you're contributing to what would be one-of-a-kind historical storytelling even WITHOUT Destiel also the elephant in the room.

-

"We will never give you the ending that you want"

Dean confirming the show Can Not End like this. Because at this point, if it ended any way badly for any of the characters, Sam and Dean would continue tearing up heaven, earth, hell, purgatory, the empty, and any other realms and universes you care to name to fix it, so if this is ever to end, then it has to end GOOD.

The characters eyeballing the writer like "I see you, fucker, and I want a happy ending."

-

Chuck disappeared and my eyes went right to the pink elephant rotating in the background.

I'm still kinda mad that there's a "don't think about the pink elephant" thing going on here but I'm not sure what the pink elephant is even supposed to be XD

Missing out on fandom over the last few months means I have no group-think to read on that or the red cart from last episode, I just have to guess and then one day when this is all over (tomorrow) I guess I might eventually find the capacity to delve people's blogs and find the chatter myself :'D

-

Oh nooo Eileen is having a similar crisis to Dean earlier, but with the awful side order of being a side character. Of being put in a closet for a scene because you weren't interesting to the writer.

Lordy lord, I just remembered how pissed I was at Buckleming yesterday for randomly leaving Eileen behind and not having her do anything interesting for the whole episode, and essentially putting her in the cupboard between scenes. 

How do Bobo and Dabb do this, set them up and then drag them down with such precision? :'D Like, their bad writing practices revealed as CHUCK's poor writing, which in a flash excuses all the Buckleming garbage, maybe through the whole SHOW, as saying, well, that's just Chuck writing nonsense to try and move the story along, of course it's bad, he's a bad writer. Our show at its worst is Chuckleming and that's okay. It's just the storytelling of the thing. 

-

I mean doesn't make me happy to sit through their episodes so much but weirdly soothing to me in the sense that the show itself is trying to correct for its own flaws, and finding such a... a galaxy brain way to do it.

-

I had noticed that an upcoming episode is called Galaxy Brain, unless this one is (nope, it's "the trap") and i had been wondering what the heck that was about. Having the phrase dropped in the show itself is making my own brain do spirals :'D

-

AW YES, SAMMY GOING IN FOR THE KISS

As sudden yet smooth as we were warned he might be. I remember Lucifer making fun of Sam for not being assertive any more back in season 11 when showing his smooching technique

And then Eileen was introduced like the next episode, right? Lol.

-

Anyway took him a while but HOORAAAAAY!!!!!

-

This is what Cas SHOULD have done for Dean when he was having his existential crisis at the start of the season, honestly.

-

"I know that was real"

Aurgh, Bobo wrote the break up and this, right? Sam directly echoing what Cas TOLD Dean that they were real, but he didn't follow through.

Cuz Turbo Hell would have grabbed him right then and there. 

Which wouldn't have improved Dean's mood much, I guess.

Maybe it was for the best.

-

ANYWAY LOOK HOW CUTE THESE KIDS ARE THOUGH.

Eileen has such big expressive eyes and this is a very sweet moment from her with the little boop on Sam's chin and aaaaaaaah!!! I love them!!!!!

-

I mean she's still leaving to get her head together after discovering she's a side character in Sam's story, which honestly may be healthy because we're probably pretty much bang on the money that Chuck kills Sam's gfs for shits and giggles, canon confirmed the "narrative symmetry" line back in 4x18, so she probably ought to stay the heck away while they figure this out.

And also Shoshanna probably isn't contracted to be in ALL the episodes post-resurrection so they need to give her a break or, see above, Chuck being out to hit Sam with that ole cosmic plunger again, the narrative hits her contracted number of episodes, and she has to be killed off for Sam's manpain.

-

It's fucking incredible to have been obsessed with this show literally inside and out for years and now I'm getting this wild vindication where talking about things on this level of both set, contract, fandom joke, in-story motivations, character things, everything, all comes together in one place to make a point. That I can start a sentence with the name of the actress and end with talking about how an in-story character will get her if she is around too much :'D

-

when they ever talk about the ending being for "the fans" that's me, I am "the fans"

-

ASFJLKDGHD Cas and Dean sitting at the table together. 

In their PIZZA PARTY places with Cas at the end, Dean at the corner, so that their knees can brush, their feet bump, and they're able to lean in as close as they like to each other, barely any furniture in between.

Not to be too tinfoil hat but Destiel is canon anyway, so all my ranting about the use of the table as a prop to display character feeling, closeness or isolation, emotional rifts or closeness... 

Kinda feeling vindicated all over again.

(Cas is in love with Dean in this scene here.)

(he's in love with Dean in all scenes)

(even the ones he's not in)

(okay the shitpost about him momentarily wavering when Dean does the scooby dooby doo thing is valid, but all other scenes and moments.)

-

God, this is so wild. Sam gets his GF arc wrapped up and she leaves and it's sad for him, and then he walks in to announce that, and finds Dean n Cas snuggled up catching up now their ship is righted. It's.

Listen, this season is about Dean n Cas vs Sam and Eileen, with the two on a pendulum. Opening of the season focussed on our gay angel and his idiot boyfriend, then that all went to hell so Eileen tapped in for her side of the romance storyline, then as soon as she bops out... Dean n Cas basically huddling together. 

This would have driven me actually momentarily insane if I had been watching this not knowing Destiel was about to be indisputably canon, and it was all still floating in that "maaaaaaybe :)" zone it had been in so long.

That seems so much less cruel now we know that all the main instigators ship the fuck out of it and Bobo has a whole backlog of Destiel tweets to like once the cat was finally out of the bag and his big ILY he'd been plotting since the start of the season had been slapped down on the table.

-

AAAH I am moving in second increments through the episode but this is just SO MUCH.

-

Dean, who has voiced out loud for the first time since like, season 3 or 4 or whatever, just how bad his mental health can be at times, takes a deep breath, and lets it all go, and accepts Sam's explanation and apology for believing Chuck, still believing that the Orb was a bad idea. 

"Good enough for me"

Let's hope that with this short amount of show left, Dean has achieved his own version of self-actualisation and is ready to work his way to the end via all his character flaws to emerge perfect at the end hahahahahahahaaaaaaa

I am asking a bit much, huh?

Let's start with seeing if he volunteers to take the trash out without being asked tomorrow and go from there.

-

Cas looks from Sam to Dean. A moment of being proud of Dean for not throwing a hissy fit, seeing his growth, knowing that things might be easier now and that it's okay for him to be back :')

-

Dean's endless belief in "find another way" is why I really do think that him trying to talk soothingly to Sam to make it all better as like, the adorable big brother to the universe, will always be what fixes the world and why Dean as its protector can hold it better than Chuck ever could :')

-

Don't like Dean being crushed like Atlas under the weight, but.

You know, still proud of him for holding it up when no one else can.

-

Fuckin called it that Billie's line would be "it's time"

Because what else has this pause between seeing her and Jack been but time for TFW to try and fail, and, as I said, now she has to play her cards once they're dealt out of the game for a moment. 

I really hope Jack hasn't been helplessly spinning on the spot for 9 episodes and change, because that sucks for him.

Maybe he was playing the Star Wars movies in his head while he waited. I do that with Lord of the Rings when I'm trapped with nothing to do in boring places. 

Could probably do it with SPN but then I'd get frantic and need to write things down and there's no paper in the Empty.


	10. 15x10

15x10 watching notes

fuck me I just had Trisscar point out to me that the title of this was "The Heroes' Journey" as I was loading it up and now I am AFEARED.

-

"I hate missing my favourite show" as the opening.

Oh boy this is already too much using the comic opening montage trope of fun monster kills and like the 8x08 "Bang!" shot and so on, then on to recapping Garth. 

(Garth! Garth! Garth! *chants and bangs desk*)

Oh, btw this is me fresh from finishing 15x09 and it is 10:18am GMT on November 19th 2020, for context of the Whole Mood going into this.

-

"That was just the beginning. This is... the rest." They have great test to meta-commentary their way into episodes now.

-

Oh wow, this fight is. Wow. Are we sure we're watching Supernatural still?

OH SHIT YOU CAN'T WOLF OUT IN A FIGHT. THAT'S CHEATING.

-

Is this an underground monster fight club?

OH. Yes. It IS.

OH, SHES'S A SIREN. AWESOME.

THIS IS MY NEW FAVOURITE SCENE. Two hot as fuck people bashing each other with the kind of chill piano music of an end of game Final Fantasy XIV boss fight.

-

Er, yes, playing Final Fantasy between last time you knew me and this month has changed my aesthetic a lot. I unironically like a lot of new things I barely could stand people knowing I might ironically like before. 

Such as the entire concept of Final Fantasy.

It's called character growth. Dean can do it, why can't I??

-

Berens' Kwick Trip. 

OPE

Open 7 Days come by once! 

KOLACHES.

.... 

well, sometimes you get memorialised in the world building with your name on something epic, sometimes you're a kooky shop that 

wait

that "OPE" is like one letter off the new Bobo "COPE" meme.

lol totally not intended but everything is fake now anyway so I'm just gonna claim that broken sign for him. His shop is telling you to COPE.

but yeah, seriously, after he wrote the previous episode, and hearing how he sort of spearheaded the destiel this season what with being the one to write the confession upfront, I feel like this tribute to him has a little extra weight somehow, at the very least to credit him as being this sort of dependable shop on the corner that sells everything, from lotto to kolaches and also "America's favourite" Margiekugel's lager that is such a favourite of the guys in-show. Like. You know he's gonna deliver what you want :'D

-

Is the scoring for this whole episode just a piano teacher playing over it all like back in silent movie days because I'm into this.

-

After being reminded of wraiths in the open, as soon as they showed a mirror I compulsively checked it for them :'D

I don't forget my hunter training. You can't catch me out.

-

I need to buy a silver pen.

-

Dean, I think the Impala just got a ticket.

-

Oh nooo who was even cooking here. Dean's out on a run, Sam comes into the kitchen to find the smoke alarm going off (at least it's not the Bunker's red alert system) ... is CAS cooking?

-

I will die if he is.

-

Or Sam was cooking but ABANDONED it to go nap instead of staying in the kitchen and WATCHING THE OVEN, YOU FOOL

... So this is going well, I say as he smashes a bunch of plates and bowls trying to rescue whatever he was chargrilling. 

-

Meanwhile Dean, I think, is eating ghost peppers again. It seems their local shop is Berens', which is just all the better. 

-

SAM. OVEN GLOVES. DUDE. I know you went to hell, but you're not actually immune to REGULAR HOT THINGS you masochist.

-

Okay, Dean's card got declined and he couldn't get his groceries so why do I feel like this is just part of Chuck's petty revenge on them. They're just always low key living in the bad rabbit's foot curse from now on.

-

Oh, yep, he just nearly got run down and there he finds his ticket, so this is it for them, their lives suck now.

Sam just nearly tripped and fell as he came skidding in.

-

Sam has the Rona.

-

Oh god:

15.10 The Heroes' Journey

Written by: Andrew Dabb

Directed by: John F. Showalter

Air Date: January 23, 2020

....

Sam canonically could literally be an early superspreader of the Rona. It was already sneaking its way around the world by then, unchecked, to start bubbling up in early/mid february, but Sam and Dean as people who travel all over the place all the time could very well be picking it up anywhere :'D

-

The worst part is knowing that of course this was written, acted and edited long before Miss Rona was spreading her sticky fingers across the globe. She was still laying low in a pangolin at that point. So. This coming out when it does is once again smacked with the cosmic plunger of time, the way the story is twisted not only by Chuck and the writers and everything else, but by events far beyond the show's control. Giving Sammy the "flu" today of all days? Reads differently almost immediately upon airing and obviously the longer time goes on and we understand the epidemiology of how Covid spread across the globe... Jesus christ, this show, guys.

-

Maybe it's for the best that Garth called and Dean didn't have to eat any food Sam prepared.

-

Oh no, they're using cameras in the Impala as it actually drives. Dean is so going to hit a cow or something.

-

SAM, WEAR A DAMN MASK.

This is actually unbearable to know it's Jan 2020 and Sam is sick and after spending so much time freaking out about public health I have to watch this :'D

-

BABY NOOOOOO

NOT HER!! TAKE ME INSTEAD.

Chuck killing Baby of course has deep symbolic layers, not least because she was the instrument by which Sam defeated Lucifer and ended the apocalypse the first time around, delaying the fratricide for another day.

Knowing AU Winchesters made it as far as the Bunker and the Mark of Cain at times, many Sams must have had the same moment - that's not unique to our Sam. But Baby is nonetheless a powerful weapon in the Winchesters' arsenal that THEY might not even realise they have. But we even saw a flash of Chuck's 5x22 narration that last time Sam was in his head, and that of course was basically a love letter to the car with some brother fighting thrown in between.

Like, Chuck had to admire the audacity of such a random object being able to throw off the apocalypse on more than one occasion, and so in this version of the story, the version where Sam and Dean have won every round so far and reached self-awareness like none others before them (and it sucks that the matrix concept of the red pill was ruined so thoroughly this can't be applied to them in modern thinking :P) and Baby being one of the variables along with Cas's help and whatever else made Sam and Dean so resilliently dependant on each other that they could pull through at every stage so far... Yeah, this might seem like random bad luck. But I also detect a fair amount of spite too.

-

Also, just as a personal Lizzy note, I know Dabb vs Cars is very very much turning as aggressive as Chuck turning on Sam and Dean in this moment XD

-

These music cues are the normal comedy ones that play when shit happens on SPN but they're loud piano music still being played like, over the top of this.

It almost feels like Chuck is doing the music with a bit of spite.

Like, lol, I killed your car, here's the show's music we play when something funny happens.

-

What do you bet Garth has no actual monster problems, he just called Dean because he needed a babysitter.

-

HE HAS A BABY SAMMY

I CRYYYY

Do the Winchesters even know how much they've meant to Garth over the years?

I mean

Garth in the very first episode we meet him seems like he'd leave it ready to name his firstborn "Dean" so

(She's "gertie" it seems. Ah well.)

-

Hey, Sam practicing social distancing and asking Garth not to hug him. Good. Good.

You shouldn't be going into other people's houses, and we have no idea what the Rona does in conjunction with werewolfism. Is that an underlying condition??

-

"You smell so good!"  
"And we're done"

I will adore Garth adoring Dean for the rest of my days. He's the biggest Dean stan out there.

Fandom got nothing on him.

-

"You've got more kids!?"   
"Got a couple of pups!"

Totally normal werewolf things.

-

Omg the babies have sweater vests too. The Garth and Bess aesthetic is So Much.

Everyone went cottagecore over lockdown so it's probably more in fashion than it's ever been.

-

Aw Sam feeling so overwhelmed to meet a baby named after him :'D

So overwhelmed he conjures violin music to the soundtrack instead of the KILLER piano we've had going.

Dean glances at him proud and happy, then looks to the other twin...

(I do have spoilers on this I've realised, the names were inescapable :'D)

Dean's expression is so funny. 

I think Garth made a smart move though: name them so they don't have to fratricide each other later as a symbolic mirror. Sam and Castiel will actually get along and be little nerd babies together :'D

-

OMG there is plot here, and it's that Bess's cousin is the pitfighter wolf from the opening... And they have him in plaid pyjamas lying in Gertie's cute little bed. This is adorable. They can suck the badass out of anything and make it sweet. 

I mean I figured that the wraith may not be able to KILL a werewolf with multiple stabbings, because monsters can recover from almost anything but the magic means of killing them, of course they could have hyper-violent blood sport to the "death" with each other because as long as, like, silver and garlic were banned, they can do just about anything. 

I guess wraith stabs are not as easy to bounce back from as regular stabs, though.

-

Omg poor Dean broke a tooth on hard candy... Dude is lucky to have ANY teeth at 40, the life he lives. 

Heh, Garth refers to how he's over 40 too now, and he thought he'd be dead before 40 (go out young and pretty)

The fact he's talking about his wife and kids and showing off this domestic life... There's no Dean in it, but that just makes a void where Dean is like.... do I want this... Do I want a mini me in a cute baby flannel and leather jacket and baby lumberjack boots? Do I want a cozy house with handmade quilts on the walls?

I mean, he might not want THAT level of cutesy but he's complimenting Garth's house in the same way like, actual adults go to each other's places and talk about how nice they are. This is a Real People conversation even with the underlying stuff about hunting and dead before 40 and things.

"Sometimes things work out!"  
"Yeah, sometimes..."

Garth: blessed  
Dean: literally cursed right now. 

He did just get Cas back but they're a loooong way off this level of domesticity. 

They're talking about deserving, but though Dean is literally holding this fraying world together with his bare hands right now, the universe in turn is slapping him around with that plunger, trying to tell him he doesn't deserve it. That he can't have it and even if he tried, it would be snatched away.

-

Garth takes Dean to his TORTURE BASEMENT

or... Dentist room.

-

Same difference.

-

"You're very strong"

Hilarious to watch him being manhandled by a monster into a torture chair but it's actually mundane and Garth wants to help. This is such a mirror of how things go wrong for them. Sam is sick and Bess is giving him a Strange Concoction which is usually around when the MotW poisons them.

Babies watching with high amusement at seeing Sam tortured. Their playpen has diamond patterns on it, which date back to season 1 and patterning to warn of demony evil dangers... Boiled down to a nice soft cozy spot for baby Sammy and Cas to sit and laugh at big Sam.

-

Gertie has an ADORABLE wolf plushie.

I love this family!!!

-

"MUMMY THE GIANT'S CRYING! :D"

-

I adore Sam and Dean being ministered to by people who just want the best for them. Like, Chuck is absolutely giggling to himself over this but SO AM I because this is well-meaning torture rather than Actual Torture.

And honestly isn't it just a big 2020 mood to never have a Normal One any more? This doesn't even feel like it's aimed at them, this is how we ALL FELT ALL YEAR so far.

Except that one week where Destiel went canon and Trump got dunked on and then a bunch of Covid vaccines all got announced at once.

-

Sam dying on the floor while a bunch of werewolves watch on dispassionately, OR Sam rolling on the floor because he drank Cayanne Juice and there werewolves are cheerfully waiting for it to fix him.

"Everything is burning!" Actually this honestly isn't far off how he probably felt in that Dabb episode way back in season 6 where at the end he was getting Hell memories back and started rolling on the floor while in his head he was literally on fire.

-

"Here comes the airplane!"

Dean opens his mouth to reveal Jensen's perfect teeth. 

At least Misha has the decency to have a ton of metal fillings back there. And he's playing an angel!

Could they not have FAKED Dean's teeth rotting out of his head with make up or is Jensen so perfect that sort of thing just bounces off.

-

SEVENTEEN CAVITIES.

Dean that means you have like three teeth left that work.

-

Sam yelling at babies "HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEL" is weirdly symbolic to where they are - he's tortured and burning, but the babies are the symbolic image of innocence and just crying because things feel bad far beyond their understanding... How the people feel trapped in this world under Chuck's thumb and yet Sam is the one who actually knows what's going on and is suffering for them. Like. Am I just seeing full on Jesus imagery in Sam doing this or is that actually a valid reading of this nonsense??

-

Oh no here comes the gas!

And of course we see it framed from within the jaw of a teeth model, as if the world is about to slam its teeth shut around them, devouring Dean and Garth whole.

-

"I'm doing this for your own good, buddy" 

Also a metaphor for Dean's suffering for the sake of character development. Dabb is Garth, this goofy man who accidentally birthed an amazing family within the show - not saying he created it or the fandom is due to him, but in his corner he sure nurtured something amazing. And he looks at Dean, and he sees 17 cavities worth of character development, and so he gets his drill and his laughing gas and he gets to work to set Dean to rights. While making Sam roll around on the floor on fire.

-

"Big Sam Is Okay" I love. I love him so much. I 

*cries*

-

Oh. No. 

-

Dabb: Okay guys this is the last season, let's all share what we wanna do with the characters and story as we wrap up. Okay, go!  
Yockey: ooh, I wanna see Lilith again  
Glynn: WITCH!SAM!!! EILEEN!  
Perez: Ooh Becky redemption? Pls?  
Buckleming: ... adam back from hell??   
Jeremy Adams: Badass Cas!!!  
Berens: CANON DESTIEL  
*everyone turns to Dabb*  
Dabb: Kinda always fancied a black and white tap dance sequence myself.

-

Oh, oh boy this dance. I guess it starts just with the fact that Garth has brought the Silly Gas to Dean, and so he's ushering him into this state of relaxation and pure nonsense, and so him as a sort of guide - a PSYCHOPOMP to this weird dream - he leads the dance, bowing and encouraging Dean to take part like some sort of fey spirit setting the rules for an encounter with etiquette beyond normal mortal ken. But once he's eased Dean into it and started him really dancing in earnest, Dean can let his friend go and start to dance for himself, bolstered by the aid. The bunker setting changing it from a library to a time-appropriate dance hall with club tables around the side, the shiny floor now a tap stage almost like it was designed to do it, Dean's home stretching to new bounds to accomodate this sudden flight of fancy...

he throws aside his stick, no need for that aid. I don't know the language of Oldey Tap except enjoying it in the black and white movies I've seen in my time, but it does sort of seem like the willy wonka trick of shuffling in, doing the roll, and suddenly being completely spry... except the dancing already starts off wild so once the stick is thrown aside and the dancer truly goes for it, it's even more of a sort of dancing frenzy unleashed...

And here we are.

I love Lamp.

as someone who has participated in all the Lamp Talk of the past, of the light over Dean's bed, of Cas as a Sexy Lamp per TV Tropes definition, all of it... Yeah, I see what's going on here. 

Just to say yes I absolutely agree that this is indicating that after Dean sees all of Garth's happy world he's made for himself that Dean DOES have that craving for the romantic partner, and he dances with this beacon of light in his otherwise mostly dark world, with only small lights around the edges, all the little partners who never shone like this... And of course in the wider context of the season, having just made up with Cas, that even when things are terrible he can be HAPPY about that, that he DOES have something now, that he made some actual big emotional progress with Cas...

And then he blows a kiss to the lamp, dances up some stage stairs that have been added for the routine, and ends up doing a jig on the map table. Dean once more as the divine, dancing on the world. Again this imagery of him as some sort of cosmic entity in his own right, feeling happy and even enthusiastic by now as his role in "saving people hunting things", that this philosophy, his core philosophy, has never guided him wrong in all this time and all his other mistakes. So that here, in this strange time for him butting heads with God Himself over how to correctly shepherd the world, this is where Dean dances happily on top of the world.

He IS on top of the world. And yes it could just be a metaphor for how the gas makes him feel in the very literal sense. But Dean has straddled the line between being a man and a god, and I think at this point is actually reasonably well-balanced, all things considered.

Back in Carver era they really made a lot of choices which were bolstered with ego and a sense of entitlement, especially in the whole sense of exploring their feeling of being entitled to keep resurrecting each other if they knew they had the means, this became such a part of where Carver wanted to break up the codependency but first having to drag them to the very depths, where they would seem to be ready to say "fuck the world" to save each other. 

And Dabb has healed all that up and put Dean now in a place where this doesn't seem rude, in the way where some fans were actually getting genuinely disgusted with the brothers and their choices and tuning off. Where this would seem entitled and like the Winchesters are gloating about dancing over the world at the peril of everyone else. 

They brushed past that dark divine instinct and came out the other side soft and ready to fight for the planet, for the sake of the planet. And they know and don't want to fall into the feelings of codependency where things spiral until their mistakes have them at each other's throats ready to rip them out.

-

Gosh I Love This Show.

-

Sam just casually correcting, no God's not trying to kill us, he's trying to make us kill each other. With a cheerful hand gesture at Dean.

Totally having a normal one. That kind of laughing chaotic energy honestly is so 2020 where Sam's just like, fuck it, this is happening, it's actually kinda funny, huh?

-

Oh, LOL even with all the drama they may have involved Garth in at times, like how they had to leave him tied up in the Impala trunk for a whole hiatus once thanks to AUMichael... They've never actually explained the depth of the nonsense they're involved in.

I guess keeping Garth as a casual friend in the way of having someone who doesn't know you're a mythic hero is nice for having chill friend hangs, but... Makes this sort of explanation a bit hard to get out all in one go :P

-

Garth is like "am i special guest star" (YES.) and Sam starts to panic that they're giving him a crisis because he's just had Eileen leave because of this crisis.

But she's emotionally tied to him in a very dangerous way for a guest star. Garth as a comedy sidekick can easily appreciate not wanting to be the hero, especially when it is a literal and metaphorical curse. Being in the beam of all that cosmic attention is awful and he can see that immediately.

But he says, "Sure, you'll probably win eventually" because he's full of optimism in how wonderful they are. He can't envision a world where they fail. He's been shielded from the worst of them, even with all the nonsense he's seen along the way. And as a result he has this outside perspective of feeling pretty confident in their ability to overcome, even when they themselves don't see it that way. And sure they can think he doesn't have the big picture OR all the gritty details. But he has a measure of their characters that's always been very kind towards them and seeing the best when they can't. Here he is again, almost to give a Dabb writer voice of authority declaration on their chances. 

-

Lol Garth including 50 Shades of Grey in his list of superhero origin stories. 

Things get weird fast.

"W-Who's the hero in that?" Sam asks, morbid curiosity getting the better of him.

-

Garth arguing that narratively they're not the heroes any more, so they're dealing with stuff like getting the rona or cavities and stuff that have just been lurking out of their lives all this time because things have moved too fast for them.

Like how Dean should have had a heart attack from all the bacon and pie he subsists on years ago, but he just has a bubble of protection barelling him through no matter what he does. He's literally tested this in recent memory, eating that godawful pile of bacon in a fit of nihilism. Either the bacon kills him or the story does, and he'd rather it's the bacon but it never is.

-

Unless it is today.

-

Anyway they find being "narratively normal" to be the same as "cursed" because having Dabb vs Cars taken away from them, they can't arrive on time to everything no matter how far away from it they are when they set out. And Baby won't magically power through and never run out of gas at a bad time or break down or anything like that.

-

"You need to get a colonoscopy, stat!"

... how can i not assume there's double meaning there when Dabb has history like with Cas waving a digit at Dean in 11x10 when attending to him :'D

Like yes, he is a prime candidate for bowel cancer being a middle aged dude who subsists on red meat and processed food.

But like, in fan fic land where none of these problems exist, a butt is for 1 thing only :P

-

Anyway that seems to be the end of the teasing for now, we go to some monster of the week stuff. 

-

Don't be mean to Sammy about his puppy eyes!

I guess for werewolves puppy eyes are like... Less of a thing.

-

"I've got three baby mamas, I've got bills!"

Dean nods like, fair, I would join an underground fight club streamed on the dark web in that situation.

-

I just noticed that Dean has a little spotlight on his head and then he goes outside, and also has a spotlight behind his head in that shot. And of course finished his dance with it like that.

Just saying, they're really pushing a halo on him here!

-

Garth is worried they're going to go get their Normal People Funk all over doing a wildly dangerous case for a normal person. 

Like, how many times was Garth hurled across the room and knocked out. 

-

What I don't quite get yet is why exactly this needs hunter intervention - are they going to go ask the management for an inquiry into the stabbing? This does seem like internal monster business. Did they not think that when you have a secret monster dark web fight club, you might not run the risk of being left for dead in a bog? 

Seems like the least worst outcome.

-

I mean maybe they're just gonna find the badass hot wraith lady and ask her for an antidote for her stabbing spike thing and maybe she'll kick their butt for our entertainment a bit then give it to them?

I'm not 100% clear on the case here, maybe because Dabb has been telling far more about the Winchesters than the MotW nonsense.

-

Dean saying they had horseshoes in their ass... Oh dear, he's been diverted back onto a low-key obsessing about butt stuff track

Why does this always happen in Dabb episodes

-

"Then I'm coming too!"  
3 normie hunters but one of them is a werewolf? Garth honestly has a better chance of survival than they do :'D

Dean is freaked because he wants Garth to stay safe with his family - they've worked so hard to protect him and his family over the years, often prioritising him for calls to let him know when Bad Shit was happening and to head for the hills. 

-

Winchesters are good friends, but only when it's cosmic.

They would not. NOT. be good babysitters of choice.

-

Why do I feel like they're going to meet Garth here anyway even after he agrees not to come.

What do we bet he's so used to living in the trunk of the car he just up and threw himself into it when they weren't looking to ride here with them.

-

I love how realising they're normal means they kind of have to... prepare for a hunt like they would have waaaaaaay back when, when they were young and stupid and didn't take for granted so many narrative perks that they really did begin to rely on dumb luck to get them through so much.

And only in hindsight, when they start thinking about, well, maybe we should be over-prepared for this VERY DANGEROUS JOB WE DO, that it becomes apparent how many work standards they've let slip since they were young.

-

Maybe it should be a wake up call just about their recklessness...

-

Did Dean just pick up the grenade launcher and leave the ammo behind.

At least we see Sam locking the trunk behind them. It's nice to see they're attending to the little details. I mean we can't see them wear seatbelts in the Impala but... some things are different...

-

Narrative belatedly remembering that Sam is a giant gangling moose who's so far from the ground he can't see a bucket on it is so fucking funny.

-

Dean you are 40 you can not eat 5 grilled cheese sandwiches.

COLD grilled cheese sandwiches.

Has Chuck made you lactose intolerant?

-

Well that was disgusting, and now he also has to worry about all the germs involved in puking in a horrible grody bathroom.

-

I love the character design to Cuddy the fight club owner. Saw him bopping around in the opening sequence and delighted to have him reappear as a major player here :D

-

Ahaha Dean having pre-prepared burns for shifters like "so you CHOSE that face" is great. 

I'm just assuming Cuddy will make them fight and of course now they're normal they have to rely on actual skill, not their uncanny luck.

Poor Cuddy, getting them on their worst, most normal day.

-

At least the rabbit foot curse would have made the fights hilarious.

-

Dean calling the big vamp "meredith" as an insult. Dude. Be chill. She's one of the best writers.

-

Dean's smack talk is really making me nervous for the ongoing connectedness of his arms to his torso.

-

Can't believe you have to choose between watching SPN or watching the Monster Battle Royale. 

-

"COULD WE EVER ACTUALLY PICK LOCKS OR WAS IT CHUCK THIS WHOLE TIME???"

Amazing.

He's just had them wiggling random bits of wire in padlocks and pinging them open after a few seconds to let them think they're super skilled :'D 

-

DEAN PEP TALK

*grabs the popcorn*

If he can talk Sammy into victory, even without Chuck's assistance, as they learn their capabilities all on their own without divine intervention... That would be awesome as a sign of how they can be strong enough to emotionally as well as physically carry this burden of basically taking over stewardship of the earth from Chuck. 

-

I mean, trapped waiting for a prize fight while baying monsters watch and a douchey fight organiser pushes you around sure is the emotional territory of where they are now. These cages are Metaphors.

-

"It was US." 

I love Dean. 

"We've been doing this our whole lives. We're the best in the world."

"I say we go out there and KICK SOME ASS."

I have to say I'm a sucker for Dean's cliche speeches.

-

Welp, fight time!

-

This huge fucker is the metaphor for everything they have to go up against. A WALL of toxic masculinity.

-

Ahaha they're already gone, never mind.

Thanks Garth.

-

"Dammit!" hahaha suck it Chuck mirror.

Garth in a stupid hat thwarted you.

-

"When you didn't pick up I figured you were super boned" Sounds about right. Love that he tells them they're fucked and then the next time he sees them they're here in cages :'D

Garth of course representing the Power Of Friendship And Not Having To Do Shit Alone. They might be too weak and human and normal to take on Chuck - maybe they feel like this against him even on a confident day as they do against the monsters on a jinxed day... But with clever help from their loyal friends, they can accomplish a lot more than just Brotherly Love And Going It Alone as some fans want them to do.

-

Dean complaining about how strong Garth is... Amazing.

-

Garth just........... blew up........ all of them. 

"Cool, right?"

Nope, now they have to fight this vampire but he's on fire.

(I feel like there's probably something to say about the power of friendship and the skills they bring, like, we just saw Billie and Jack and they would presumably be on our side... So this is the sort of firepower they can still summon even if they themselves are only good for peptalks and making coffee...)

-

CLASSIC GARTH.

Listen. It's not a Garth episode until the big fight starts and he's punched clean across the room and goes night night for the rest of the fight.

-

DEAN you can't call him Madison! Sam has TRAUMA related to that name!!

-

Holy shit Dean you suck.

-

Did Sam and Dean learn to fight from cartoon movies.

-

I'm EMBARASSED to KNOW them

-

I mean at least the big guy is enjoying how shit they are so much he doesn't actually want to kill them yet just because it's so amusing toying with them.

That's something.

I mean

It's something awful metaphorically about their chances against Chuck

-

Well thank fuck for Garth.

-

He got. Garthed.

-

"This Cas keeps looking at me weird"

(at least Dean's voice has descended again)

I'm so glad Dean got to hold baby Cas. Holding baby Sam would have just been tragic in a weird way since we start the show with him being handed a bundle of baby Sam and told to run. 

Him staring at baby Cas and being totally weirded out is chill and neutral on the angst, high on the funny scale.

-

"So kinda like the real Cas"

Akjsdfksdjgfskgjhsg

I think Sam just murdered Dean and he doesn't even realise it was a dig on Dean and not on Cas. 

-

Baby Cas caught on camera doing a GREAT side-eye it doesn't even realise it's doing.

-

Eeep baby werewolves are SCARY.

-

SAM WAVING BYE TO BABY SAM

I love it.

-

I mean the case itself was er, well, they blew the place up so I guess they put a stop to that. Were they really just being monster cops here? I'm a little bemused but I guess the c4 means that anything that was a problem in the monster fighting ring no longer is...?? Let's call it solved before these poor sorry assholes have to get into any more trouble.

They need to go home and do some remedial fight training.

-

"I learned from the best" Awwwww Garth.

-

Er, they're getting a weird ass tip off about going to Alaska to fix their luck??? 

Is this the thinnest excuse to make sure the Winchesters tick off almost all the states -

wait

wait 

does this mean that the last episode they get to go to Hawaii and go to the beach??????

I will be so happy.

I mean we probably kinda know they didn't.

But I wish they could :'D

-

AHAHAHAAA Dean sniffed Garth when they hugged.

Look.

Baby steps towards him being comfortable with physical intimacy with dudes which he would normally deem weird.

-

Akjsdfhskdjfshdkjfshdkjfshdkfjshkfsd Garth dancing with Bess and Dean spots it and just gets so ... sad... nostalgic... wistful... and Sam does a bit too but like, Dean's all "I always thought I could be a good dancer" because omg he wants LAMP.

I UNDERSTAND LAMP NOW.

(fandom is weird these last few days and I've been scrolling fast past things I don't understand but... yep, lamp theory confirmed.)

Aw my heart. Dean is ready for a dance partner of his own. And who does he have waiting for him? Cas!!!

CAS IS IN LOVE WITH HIM RIGHT NOW

And this is a very silly Dabb episode but it's called Heroes' Journey, and Sam and Dean have had to learn a few things on theirs, but most importantly they see Garth at the conclusion of his, with the lovely wife, kids, and fulfilment. He can even practice dentistry on the side. And he's making it work. 

Sam and Dean here are looking wistfully at what an endgame might be. Have had to stop and consider what work they actually have to do on themselves to earn the ending and be strong enough for it.

Like, this is in a way a stripping down and cleansing for them of years of narrative convenience, and addressing their uncanny luck, and making it a real thing, making this meta, self-aware concept that they were genuinely blessed all this time (but not for good reasons) and having them seeking a quest to sort of get re-blessed but I guess deservingly and under their own power and consent... 

They might have to learn to actually pick a dang lock, but they're going to be deserving when they get there.

My god, this show. After 15 years, where else can you go but to look at your heroes and say, well, are you ready to really finish this pilgrimage to be heroes in full knowledge you're scaling that postmodern mountain that is like, a literal textbook graph of the heroes' journey?

-

"You're awesome at the macarena"

I will not die happy until I see Dean dance the macarena.

-

Love that they decide to undertake a quest at the last minute. But it's not to get a weapon or knowledge or anything. Just to earn back narrative blessing to be main characters :')

-

Oh Dabb, we're putting a looot of trust in you but this episode is all about you wanting to tell the story right and do right by the characters and give Dean his sexy lamp. SO. Guess I'm gonna have to extend that trust for now... Here at the end of all things :'D


	11. 15x11

15x11 watching notes

Hrm, it is 3pm, the final fantasy daily timers all clicked over. Maybe I will level my paladin class a bit -

NAH.

-

Oh that stupid fight from last time is gonna be in all the recaps from now on :'D

-

This recap is ridiculous. This season has been ridiculous. I think this only makes sense if you follow the meta narrative at this point.

-

ALASKA.

Have they been saving up all their Alaska nonsense for now. 

Oh dear, this pool game looks like it's about to go much worse than it seems... Oh dear, yep, this is... bad. NO CLUE what is going on, but. Bad.

-

"You;re outta luck" oh, right, is this what they have to do? Are they even any good at pool without Chuck? Oh no. Oh NO. 

Their whole lives in training and it comes down to the big game.

-

Hey Cas! Sorry, your guys fucked off on a vision quest in the Alaskan wilds. Fuckin hipsters. They're why the authorities had to move the Magic Bus.

-

EEEEEEEEY Sam's orange jacket!

... Cas and Dean should be texting this much, and it's a crime they're not.

-

I mean, Dean's driving so later, of course.

-

Sam telling Dean he could change his diet while not thinking about the fact that he could probably have got just as buff without all the fretting about salads and never have felt any ill-effects because if he was supposed to be that buff he'd be that buff.

-

Lol, of course the classic tropes of a quest that's based on a leap of faith - like, normally reserved for religious quests to seek God or whatever - has Sam doubting and Dean of iron faith.

-

AGENT LIZZO.

Cas you are wonderful you queer icon. 

-

"I guess a fed's a fed, right? *HIGH NERVOUS LAUGH*" ... what is Cas about to be dragged into?

-

I love how Cas is getting these cases by accident, forcing him to be hunter!Cas even when he wasn't actively searching. It's like. Season 10, Cas was always fucking off looking for magic things while Sam and Dean did hunts. Now Sam and Dean are fucking off looking for magic things in far-flung places, and Cas is picking up the slack!

Love this for Agent Lizzo.

-

I'm sorry, JACK IS THE MURDERER? 

lol 

they grow up so fast.

Cas having an absolute emotional overload for a moment there... Even if his son is not back and even if he's not murdering people, checking this lead out is still going to be one of the more painful ones... And that's just me saying that knowing full well I've seen Alex's name in the credits already.

-

Oh these poor fuckers driving all night in a car and even when it hurt it probably wasn't as bad as being 40 and normal and driving all night :'D

-

Round up cafe! 

Because even though everything is cowboys in America, they ARE in Alaska so that is kinda weird but not when Dean is haunted by cowboy imagery :'D

... he ate all their food and they have $4.60 to last. 

In the Alaskan wilds. 

The reason they never go to Alaska is the hundreds of miles between food.

-

Aww they're gonna share a slice of pie. 2 forks...

Last call for a Brothers Are Mistaken For Gay, or is it going to pass without notice like, er, normal people everywhere would do.

-

Huh, a Meredith/Davy production. She did the writing, they both cracked the story together! This should be wiiiiild... I love when Meredith works with the others. Her joint episodes have been some of the most phenomenal of the show. Like, she just brings this magic fairy glitter to what already would have been good and just. ELEVATE.

-

Magic pool hall! Yeeeeah!

I love that this is going back to the real roots of the show - urban legends and Americana. All those empty spaces on the map, filled with strange, grotty places with their own strange magics. Somewhere as lost as this place is perfect for accumulating lore.

-

Aaaaah. yes. Of course it rabbit foot's you. And of course Sam and Dean are in particular peril because as normies they are going to be really afraid that their luck can't just swing it for them, that main character juice isn't flowing in their veins, ensuring they'll make it to the next big cosmic showdown.

They literally are roadtripping brothers with everything taken away from them making their life genuinely hard, and all Chuck had to do was turn off that tap, and the show can suddenly write a normal MotW where Sam and Dean are up against seemingly insurmountable odds.

And of course they have to face the fact that if the magic pool hall is killing people, just like with all the times they've sought out magic before but discovered it has such a bad consequence, they have to decide maybe they need to STOP the magic pool hall, not take it on and win and like, validate it.

-

There's a bird cage mirror behind them. That's mostly behind Dean's head.

let the caged bird out!!

Gonna just slap that with a GAY SUBTEXT sticker and move on for time.

-

Debate ensues about if cursed magic pool hall is good or bad... Dean thinks they'll still have the skill at it, even learning they can't pick locks like they used to. It feels like something that should be within the realm of human capability to learn and practice to be as good as they were without it needing to be nudged in their favour much. Like. They could and should be genuinely good at it just from sheer muscle memory, right?

-

Oh poor Baby. You don't deserve what Chuck is putting you through AT ALL.

-

Hey, is Cas normie too now? I guess he was always kinda cursed. And he was lucky to field this call.

Maybe mortal concepts like "Luck" don't apply to him in the first place.

-

Jack... KILLING PEOPLE?

JACK BABY WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Cas having to view this is a hate crime against gay dads who did their best.

-

JACK. HEARTS AREN'T NOUGAT.

-

This evokes the exact same emotion as Baby Yoda going for them tasty tasty forbidden eggs.

-

What a great run down shack in the wilderness. Wanek outdid himself this time, this place is creeeeepy.

-

How can one narrative alteration make this place, the people in it, the whole set up, everything, absolutely terrifying! I am on the edge of my seat as Dean and Sam get their glasses of water. The stakes are so high and this is like... what would be an average day at the office for them as a MotW, now as a plot episode and they have no mojo and their entire fate and maybe the fate of the world depends on them PLAYING POOL GOOD. AND I'M SCARED TO KNOW IF THEY'LL EVEN BE ABLE TO DO THAT!

I'M DOUBTING IF THE WINCHESTERS CAN PLAY POOL.

-

It's legit more freaky than Jack eating hearts.

-

I mean it's nice to know they have AVERAGE luck. They FEEL jinxed because they're used to having ALL THE LUCK except for cosmic plot things not going their way other epic stuff crashing down on their heads. 

To feel normal... Well.

-

Yeah this is poker!witch 2.0 but scaled up to plot relevance. Love that poker and then pool get these life and death roles in their lives :')

(I actually like poker!witch as an episode, at least, the concept, anything the witch does, and the Sam showdown with him. The Dean and Bobby stuff in it is a bit much at times.)

-

Sam being sassy to Dean about Dean saying he's been slinging pool since before Sam was born. Amazing. best lines of the season maybe.

-

The one with Cas talking about his impeccable sense of direction, that must be a different corpse. That was a winner line too.

-

Dean taking this burden on with what could have been a much grimmer speech back in season 1, about how Sam is so much better at everything than him except pool. There was a time when Dean was so sad that thinking he was only good at playing pool and nothing else would have been tragic to an extreme degree. His character has bolstered so much - and he's had so many victories where, come on, he IS good at stuff, it feels more like he's actually talking for dramatic effect here to emphasise that he would let Sam do most things which were a test of skill but he doesn't want to gloat, he just Knows after a lifetime of playing that he and Sam have their specific skill levels in this one particular thing, and he's better. And he can play it off to Sam and it doesn't come across as him being tragic and his ego so fragile. It's matter of fact but not nihilistic about his life chances. 

Somewhere in there, Dean has a whole little kernal of self-respect that was not there before!

-

Anyway he was due this one because Sam did poker!witch so it's Dean's turn to be tested here. And Sam had a banger of a previous season or two, especially around Sam, building him up. This final season has a lot of repair work to do for Dean, and boy does Meredith have a big ole heart for exploring who Dean is and presenting it for us well. 

-

This is a crime that Dean is playing pool and I'm having to watch Sam talk instead of hearing the conversation imposed over lots of shots of Jensen just playing pool in extreme close up. This is not what I paid for.

-

Anyway Sam hearing a sob story about the woman Dean's playing. The realisation that the luck is shared around here... Meaning that you're having to take it from people who might need it as much as you do.

And Dean is such a softie he might immediately release his luck back to whoever needs it more than him and try his luck (lol) with Chuck without the superhero buff they've had all this time.

-

Sam doing the usual questions about ghosts, demons and witches.

-

The message about "should have walked away" is also important. To recognise when you have it good, and to tap out. Something that will be important for the Winchesters in determining their own ending.

Because they've been the engines of change just as much as other forces over the years. Especially making big moves like trying to close hell. If they can get to a place where things seem good, walking away aka ending the show instead of falling into another escalation...

I mean it's the whole psychology about gambling. And of course Chuck was using a casino, and was rigging the slots to reward him endlessly. The Winchesters are used to making gambles but when do you recognise that your luck is dwindling?

Of course there's some skill to this game but it still involves physics doing stuff and in a world where fate and luck are real things, once the luck starts to run dry, you may just start losing more and more games and never get it back. It's maybe the mentality, that things are going bad, but one thing about gamblers is they always think they might be lucky next time and get the big win, instead of realising that where they're at is good, and they were better off before the last gamble too, so if they stopped... they don't get that high from winning or playing and HOPING to win any more, but at least they would have things stable.

Of course the real world stuff where "luck" is fake, and it's all maths and big casinos rig things so that they're always raking in more than they're handing out in winnings... Or it's games of either real skill, or pure chance, either way the determination is not an external force but simply the way things are. 

In SPN this is not really the same logic, and these people are trapped in a gambling debt more akin to money than luck. Maybe they are great pool players but the spell on this place sucks them so dry of luck that anything terrible that could happen will happen to throw off their game, and the worst part is, they may believe, like Dean, they're the best. And how can they keep losing? They ARE good at pool! So they try again and again and lose more and more luck...

SOMEONE out there is raking it in and this is a luck casino, NOT a game of pure skill. 

Which means that it WILL be rigged against participants. 

And I'm sure there's no metaphors to apply to life and their wider job and mission either :P

-

But is it a metaphor CHUCK wants them to hear, or simple advice that might actually benefit them?

-

THERE'S a shot of Jensen doing a pool thing. THANK YOU FOR THE SCRAPS.

-

JACK! Put that angel blade down and go to your room. I AM SO DISAPPOINTED IN YOU.

If I catch you eating hearts again, I will take away TV privileges for a MONTH.

-

but like welcome back to moving around in the living world and all.

-

It's funny that Cas's reaction over the phone might have made sense to us as Cas hearing about his son being alive again, but to the policeman, given what he's seen, makes him think Cas has this big history chasing a serial killer and is like "Jack" in a nemesis way when he whispered it down the line.

-

"One more game. ONE." Sam justifying it in that way which... really does sound like the sort of thing that a gambler says.

-

POOL GAME POOL GAME POOL GAME.

-

I love Dean using his real name while playing. 

-

Dean knowing what "PBR" is and it's "professional bull riding circuit" which... this is the same author as 12x11. I know.

-

I think this guy may have a looot of luck. 

-

Woah, Dean has some too. 

-

Skillz.

-

Ooh no, Dean just drained that guy's coin.

Oh noooo. He's going to feel directly responsible if anything bad happens. :(

-

OH LORDY, he's got cancer and is dying. Got the extra year but as soon as Dean took the luck, it claims him.

Oh ouch.

-

Dean is ready to go after that, having claimed the luck they were after, enough to at least boost them up a lil bit above average, all shared out. 

But Sam now wants to investigate this as a hunt, Faith style. Which always sucks when you partake of the supernatural nonsense then turn around and tell everyone else that the game is over.

"Sorry, we're the cops."

-

So Sam has until Dean gets back from giving Baby a drive and having her treat him like Dabb is writing the episode, to solve this case and maybe bust the whole thing.

If they kill a witch behind this and the coins stop working, they're gonna feel so silly.

-

NOOooooooo upsidedown Cas badge 

I am being hurt in my own home.

-

AH there's bloody handprints on the wall. They're totally not relevant to the end of season handprint thing.

-

Oh, badass Cas. "agent, I called you for answers!"  
Cas, looking over his shoulder in a torchlight beam that makes him the Sexiest Motherfucker: "and I intend to find them"

I'm so happy my badass little bundle of feathers is back :') Season 15 is an absolute GIFT for a Cas fan.

-

WELP. The luck doesn't extend past the pool hall. And Sam starts to ask people if they're, like... trapped... And the bartender can't even answer. 

Simultaneously, the brothers start to come to the conclusion that this place sucks and they have to treat it like a case because all it's doing is feeding off people then letting them die. 

-

Sam finally gets a good look at Dean's coin.

(Currency valid only within the bar)

-

YEP, House is skimming off the top. But the house isn't the perfectly reasonable people working here, it's the person depicted on the coin... 

-

Eeeeeeeeeyy roman goddesses again.

Pretty unending well of old gods to kill :'D And since the show was such a sausage fest, in 5x18 they didn't even polish off too many of the badass female ones.

-

"If you don't play yourself to death, you work yourself to death"

Well this place sucks but is now a much more show-accurate metaphor for life :P

-

Is this episode's returning Vancouver actor the guy who played Lucky in the season 6 weird dog episode?

\- 

Jack just sitting there patiently is creepy as all get out. What is he UP to.

Is he a - heh - empty vessel?

What does anyone want with these dead grigori? Why eat their hearts? 

The grigori compares the silence as being a stoic soldier (oh, wait, lol, the first grigori was from... angel heart) but I don't think that's what Jack is being. Like. There's a passive patience here which is beyond just someone being still to be badass. 

-

Aha, the first player Dean went up against is Fortuna, I guess trying him out. Is the story about her sister in a coma real, or is that just something the bartender came up with to give her a backstory?

... Ouch, she is stone cold about her son. "I can always make more sons." That kind of parenting is pretty much Chuck to a T... Not just the cheating and stealing people's luck of course, but the fact that he's made so many worlds and abandoned them. She's the lord of this one place, and rules it with the same dispassionate way he does. She just likes having her supplicants to feed from and her son is there to work for her, but she could care less what happens to him. 

-

Dean being a BAMF, he challenges Fortuna to a REAL game. 

GASP, she dares call him just a beach read! Sexy and forgettable? Lady, you do not know the NOVELS of character in this man.

But this is to Dean's advantage, that she's underestimating him already. 

-

Uhoh. She picks on Sammy instead. 

Of course their hustle has always been to pretend Sam's worse than he is, but how real is Dean's panic when she picks on him - how much is it part of the scam to act, always, like Sam is the awful one who will be an easy win for her.

-

"You threatened my baby!" *son looks briefly excited that she cares* "My livelihood!" yeah, no, she's just talking about the pool hall, not you sweetie.

-

Oh, Jack talks! 

OH YEAH, He's out to get these bad grigori hurting people! 

Er, not sure about the heart eating.

But yay for hunting? er?

Er?

Anyway before I can figure that out Cas is here to fight and I think Jack is actually surprised to see him leap in. 

-

STAB.

-

Jack like, "If you're not gonna eat that, can i have it?" about his heart.

Lol no.

-

EMotional reunion? Maybe?

"It's great to see you, son, why are you eating hearts?"

-

Awwwww, huuuuuuuuuuug!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-

But seriously, the hearts?

-

Anyway. GAME.

-

Huh, worldbuilding about gods and how this all fits in. I'd say anyone who's stuck with the show this long can't be pissed off with its use of mythology. At this point it seems uncertain that Chuck is even the Christian God in any more than there's a void and he's there to fill it in any religion that recognises a divine omnipotence, and in all other cases, as Fortuna says, he made lesser gods to fill the lesser roles and take the blame and all that. In a way you could even say that Chuck as the Generic Demiurge, makes Christianity and others like it more hollow and empty than anything which worships named, personified divine beings. Because Chuck actually MADE those to live in those roles. Of course he wouldn't mould a secondary Christian god to fill the specific desires of that religion - and change or divide Him based on whether it's protestant or orthodox or catholic - but he just steps in to take the credit anywhere humans are worshipping something close enough to what he wants to be.

Even though, of course, looking at the real creation lore of SPN, which has to include Amara, AUs, all the leviathan times and everything, is nothing like any actual religion, because none account for and worship the raw cosmic backstory of this show. No one has it right because SPN took the original stories and turned them all around and upside down and inside out, and then when they needed more they just started creating and inventing things like Amara and so on. 

I think, also, that the AUs and worldbuilding do give a loophole through which to say to anyone offended, by this point, that SPN is very firmly not taking place is THIS universe, and in fact is a parallel reflection of our own, with many similarities in how society ended up, but with the mythos so grand and deep as all this, absolutely incompatible with trying to understand it as actually commenting on ANY real world religions and religious figures at this point :'D

-

SAM. NICE GAME.

-

"You're good."  
"Learned from my brother!"

These are the fuzzy brother vibes I want in this show. No fratricide none of the early season angsty bullshit. This, I will eat 3 servings of with pie for dessert.

-

Ah, she's a gambler, a gambling addict. Unable to stop there, having lost, she starts trying to up the stakes. She can't walk away.

Please tell me the Winchesters know now not to listen to all this. Take the win and walk away.

She's bargaining to bless them with the luck of heroes. BIG ASS NAMES there. 

...

Lol Gilgamesh to Dean Winchester an unbroken line of heroes with gay ships attached to them.

-

Walk away walk away walk away! Prove to me this season has been about learning lessons and taking them and doing the right thing finally!

No more wild dangerous gambles or desperate cycles!

-

Bartender walks over to stare at Sam judgingly. 

-

DEAL? SAM. NO.

Oh, okay. He's going to play again for the people, not for themselves. 

"What is WITH you and these losers! They're nothing!"

They're the PEOPLE. You're the THINGS. Get with the motto of the show!

-

Hey are pool cues made of the magic wood type that you can stab a goddess with.

... i guess we've already had one pool cue stabbing this season but I mean this show is litearlly about sitting around in bars along the roadside so why not. Cash it all in now!

-

Dramatic shots of balls being gently knocked around. 

-

Most of them don't even show who's doing it so I can't track who's winning even if I KNEW how to play beyond this "eight ball corner pocket" thing being how to win.

-

Oops, and they finally lose.

-

These people definitely seem invested and want to go maybe?

Aww, "we had to try" bless them.

-

So they just walk out, un-killed but still not any more lucky than before. 

-

Oh, lol, and then all the people walk out and -

"She thought your kind had gone extinct [...] heroes"

Of course the message was the dumbo one, you just thought you needed the feather to fly

-

Oh for fucks sake I asked what the pink elephant was about, joked it was about Dumbo, then a couple of episodes later, here we are, using the Dumbo metaphor to bequeath them with the confidence to take on Chuck, regardless.

Because they were Good People who Tried, and at the end of that day, that's what makes a hero.

And tbh maybe they were just being hyperchondriac before.

And maybe they powered through a lot of hardship before, and never thought of things as simple as getting the sniffles as running out of luck. But faced with an enemy as awe inspiring as God? They jump at shadows. 

-

"Don't play his game. Make him play yours."

Amazing.

-

This is a story with meaning and power that's genuinely right up there with some of the best in the world. 

-

LOL and then the way Dean gets all grabby like a big brother who wants the toy when Sam gets a little bit of luck.

-

And Baby roars in approval.

-

LOL just like the rabbit foot episode Dean gets scratch cards. 

Luck of hercules doesn't mean lotto scratchers because he never fuckin did the lotto you dummy

-

Caaaas! :D

Heeeeeeee "look who I found eating hearts in the garbage"

-

That's such a nice gift to bring home to the family.

I like that Cas did all the verifying elsewhere, but it's obviously him when he raises a hand in "Hello!" 

... Dean looks to Cas very firmly for affirmation regardless, after having a good long look at Jack himself. Sam is more trusting and went right in for that hug.

-

So, um. Are we going to have the heart-eating explained?

-

Like it's not a bad look I just need to know where we're at with the little angel-werewolf baby.

-

LOL immediately to "You ate their hearts!??!" "I had to."

.... "And you let him" Dean demands of Cas, because oh my god this is a family sit down debate about finding out the kid has been staying up past 3am playing World of Warcraft and Cas knew for months or something. 

-

final fantasy, I could excuse, though.

That's got a TFW adopts a baby style storyline in the latest expansion and I thrived on it while I was too tired to interact with this stuff :P

-

AH. Jack is not using his powers because as soon as he reaches out, Chuck will KNOW that he's around and immediately come smite him. So as long as Jack stays perfectly still and silent, per that church scene, he remains undetected. 

Good thing Cas swooped in when he did, I really thought something way worse was up with Jack - er, heart eating aside, seriously, "i had to"? that's it? - but I guess he really was going to sit there and take it?? Did he know Cas was nearby and coming? Was he trying to draw their attention in a low key way? 

How is eating hearts low key

That boy was being taught about ghouls and zombies when he was a week old, his perspectives may be a bit skewed, I admit.

-

Glad Dean is still stuck on the angel hearts thing. 

WHY WAS ANGEL HEART CALLED ANGEL HEART FIVE SEASONS AGO AND NOW WE PICK UP LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY WHAT THE FUCK

My red string board is so covered in red string I can barely make out the episodes and events under the string any more. Sheesh.

And of course Jack pulls out the ole Carver era line about doing what he had to do.

-

Uuuuh does Billie have some grand plan for Jack to Highlander his way through eating cosmic beings until he's ready to eat God's heart?

-

DID SHE GIVE HIM A MENU?


	12. 15x12

15x12 watching notes

Aha, here's the one called "Galaxy Brain" which after it being namedropped in the big Bobo episode and me galaxy-braining the whole meaning of the show anyway just makes me mad curious.

Also nervous because it's another of those titles that could be Buckleming, could be someone who can use it well. I mean I don't know how Buckleming would KNOW that phrase, but hey, I live in a lot of fear of their writing.

-

Wait.

KAIA

GIRLFRIENDS

IS CLAIRE GOING TO BE HERE???????????

-

Oh dear, I guess bad!Kaia will show up for belated vengeace for taking and losing her spear. 

-

Hey, Earth2! That's a great caption. 

it's not actually a second earth per se, but it's Earth With Two Moons, or Earth 2 for short, and we just started thinking of it that way.

-

Radio Shed. Pff.

-

The thing is, SPN already has Searchtheweb and some other off-brand things knocking around, never mind fake country-wide chains like Biggersons and Gas n Sip which do prove it's an AU to the real world I'm in right now. So using alternate branding as much as 2 moons to indicate an AU is double funny just because it sort of confirms SPN as a... multiverse AU to ours? 

At the very least in comparison to us this is Earth 3. 

-

Maybe we're Earth 1, SPN is Earth 3.

French Mistake took place on Earth 4

-

Oh noooo Hillary won in 2016 here.

2 moons and no Trump.

-

LOL universal remote. 

-

Awww the kid looks at his universal remote, like, did you do this?

He's not even paying attention properly to Chuck's monologue!!

-

"I created, The World." 

Screen becomes Dean n Cas in the Bunker together at the table.

Same, buddy. You're pretty hard to relate to in many way, but in this?

Same.

-

"Sir, this is a radio shed" 

Oh my god.

-

Chuck did this big speech to Sam and now he's come here and he's furiously ranting to the poor radio shed guy about how hurr blurr Dean said I wasn't going to get my ending.

He might have freaked Sam out, but Dean got right under his skin with that speech.

(I also like that Chuck has basically the episode editing going on, so he really does sort of give us the Chuck's eye view of an episode at times when we're watching.)

He thinks they're all just toys, but this one set of Sam and Dean. They spark joy. He thinks of them as the "real" sam and dean. Maybe there were other versions, but these ones? However real their lives might have seemed to them none of the others measure up in his mind.

I guess it goes back to the Yockey episode with the biblical title about things being forged. These are the forged Sam and Dean that he's most proud of. That grew the most out of the primordial archetypes of heroes he set them up as. 

-

Oh no, he's planning to wipe out all the other universes? The "sub plots"... Like, okay, not such a big problem for OUR Sam and Dean, but that's an unimaginable loss of life elsewhere in the universe that Chuck now finds uninteresting.

I'm LIVING for the kind of stakes you can set up in a final season where your big bad is God. And your characters are paper dolls he's scribbled personalities into, but then the story itself took them and moulded them into PEOPLE.

-

Poor other worlds we didn't watch grow, though :(

-

Oh dear, "failed spin offs" "It's time to start cancelling shows"

Are you Mark Pedowitz as well as Buckleming, wiping Wayward Sisters off the map?

I should reveal, then, that like as yesterday I was wearing the Purple Dog Shirt, today I am wearing my Wayward Sisters t-shirt, both from Scout :') (lil product placement never goes amiss)

-

"Sioux Falls. Our World. Now."

"our world" being the most weighted term ever.

-

No one here knows what the covid is, for starters.

-

I have nothing in particularly meta to say about the cow scene, but my heart has just shattered all over again remembering the pain of Wayward not being picked up... These glimpses of the life they're leading... Ugh.

*lies on the floor and cries*

-

No time for that no time. 

-

The dads in a meeting discussing if they approve of their son's deal with death, and new heart-eating habit.

Just normal parenting things.

-

Cas admits, "the hearts were disturbing"

Glad he agrees, since he can sometimes take quite extreme lines on what needs to be done. At least he admits this much.

-

So Billie is not telling Jack the whole plan, AND it's confirmed he still has no soul... This is unsettling. Was his soul destroyed, or is this like, his body wandering around while his soul stays in the empty to make a sort of legal loop hole to do this that only a super powerful nephilim could get away with???

Has he any chance of restoring his soul?

-

*heart shatters again with Jack standing at the table running his fingers over where they've scratched MW into it*

-

Ow. Who is responsible for this episode??

-

Aaskjhdsgkjsdhg

Obviously, Teleplay, Bobo, story, Meredith AND Bobo.

I'm loving the collaborative nature of these episodes, these joint credits. All the writers working on these episodes giving them such a shared sense of purpose. 

... soon as they started passing notes so much, they realised Destiel had to go canon

-

Oh WOW and it's Speight. 

Prophet of Destiel back at work.

-

Aah! Sudden reaper appearance. I wonder if Jack thinking about poor Felix the snake was when he made his "silent prayer to Death"

-

"I have my concerns" 

Cas seems to be somewhat replying to the last scene just in saying, well, that's concerning. Since they don't even know Jack is consorting with reapers in his room, like a normal teenage son.

-

Again, sometimes the show NOT leaning into giving its characters a wild CW gothy makeover which could fit with Sabrina or Riverdale but everyone still just wearing plaid and jeans, makes all this nonsense so so so much funnier.

-

Sam asking the meaningful questions about cosmic balance etc, fairly straightforward, but obviously needs to be laid out just because it's been a long while since the show dealt with it and as we go into the back half of the show, having to kill God means answering a lot of questions.

The fact they're even re-posing them and going over the season 11 ground rules established for this sort of thing does show they're definitely eventually going to have to do SOMETHING to Chuck.

Like, obviously he's so mad king Joffrey with his worlds at this point.

...

OOOH has anyone thought of having Dean n Cas get married, and then obviously they have to invite Chuck as Cas's dad, and then we just sliiiiip a bit of god-poison in his goblet...

-

I'll work on the details. 

Meanwhile.

Dean gives Billie a vote of character confidence. 

Sam points out the Malak box was a bit of a bust.

But still, Dean has always been emotionally close to Death, in any guise, so his opinion does matter. Death has always done Dean a solid when things are bad. 

-

Jack trying to comprehend the ineffable ways of a force like Death, who may not come help him if literally anyone else will do it for her. 

I love this grandmotherly reaper. Mary was sort of his grandma in a weird way but also it was so weird and she was so unlike this that someone of this personality type, so comforting and matronly, is pretty unfamiliar to him.

-

"Just... follow the rules"

Why do I feel like this being said over again pretty much guarantees that Jack will use his powers, because, of course, he's never ever managed to stick to an order like this such as when using his powers would... burn his soul out of his body.

-

Sam interacting with Jack is so painful. It's like... He's so hopeful and happy to have his son back, but at the same time, Jack has made this arm's length feeling as well as not having a soul, whether he did or not, the fact he hadn't reached out to them for help sooner just makes Sam all the more nervous.

Why can this poor man never just have a good uncomplicated relationship.

He has got to have someone he can just grab for a hug when he needs it!!!!

-

Omg Dean n Cas having a drink together.

I am not going to survive, look at them. Just taking time out to spend time together yet again. Again! They are so happy to be friends again!!!

I dieeeee.

-

Oh, talking about Kelly. I also die because waaaah :<

Cas talking about how lost he'd been when Jack died just because he knew there was more to the story. 

And here Jack is again!

And he's laying low from Chuck, with Billie playing a counter plot/story against Chuck. Plot as in "plotting to kill" but also as in "writing a narrative". So she has kept the threads open on Jack's story, teasing us with these glimpses of him since he died, and finally opened his book again now that she's seen a tactical opportunity...

Aggresive warfare via writing.

I love it.

As much as I love Dean n Cas casually clinking glasses together and making my heart leap when the backs of their fingers get so close to each other.

I am weak.

-

Dean teasing him that revenge would be good too.

Cas tries to take the high road about Jack and his destiny.

Makes Cas smile!!!!!!!

He he he yes Cas wants that too.

"He wants Cain and Abel. Well, we're going biblical on him. Killed by his own granson" 

Yeah, honestly, mythology kinda needs these twisted messed up family stories. In a way it's more plausible that someone with a family claim to Chuck gets him - that even with all his creation, he's not actually any better than the gods as described last episode. Still full of family feuds and all that. Thinks a grand scale makes them fancier? Well it doesn't make him immune to a neat narrative. Family makes you strong but it can also be a weakness because the Tropes Are Hungry and in this case, the trope is all this family murder that ancient mythology is built on.

Chuck locked away his sister for eons to try and avoid it, which only really super-powered her rage when she was unleashed.

PS where is Amara, how is she doing?

-

Also, lol at mentioning within minutes that Jack's grandparents include Mary Winchester and God. 

He's an interesting kid.

-

Oh no, JODY!

Sam of course feels like wearing that orange jacket again.

His feelings are valid. I will not judge him. I've been out of fandom too long to waste time on a jacket feud. 

*bites lip hard*

-

Hi Dark!Kaia! Glad to see you can still kick the shit out of these large men. :D

Your hair is looking great!

Oh no, she can sense her world is dyyyying.

So, like, through Kaia trapped back there and they swapped places? *side eyes cancelled Wayward and any plans to eventually fix this whole Dreamhunter thing with an alive and well Kaia to make kissy faces with Claire*

-

She's aliiiiive!!!

Poor thing has had a TIME of it. 

"She's been stuck over there this whole time!"

And she's had to survive alone in the wilderness with just what dark!Kaia left her.

... I feel bad calling her dark! or bad!Kaia. The monster she controlled was called a forest troll in the script, right? This is now Troll!Kaia.

Much better.

I think Bobo would approve.

-

Ugh, to think what would have been if we'd been able to have a season of Wayward dedicated to the gay reclaiming of our Kaia from the troll world. :(

-

I guess if Chuck is disassembling that world we need to get Kaia out of there STAT.

Troll!Kaia can stay here too as a refugee at least until we figure out the Chuck destroying all the worlds thing...

but she can't keep her troll here.

-

POOR KAIA EATING WEIRD LIZARDS IN THE DARK.

-

She just wanted to hold Claire's hand. This is so unfair.

-

Chuck, despite being bi, is wildly homophobic.

-

... And we move to Cas playing connect 4 with Jack.

Adorable. 

-

Cas so invested he thumps the table with his fist.

-

"Nice to finally meet you in person"

OMG it still hasn't happened!!!! Until now! I'm so happy they get to see each other!!!!!!!!

-

I can't believe... Cas will call Sergei. Again. Please don't. This way lies only trouble. 

-

Awww Troll!Kaia left chained up in the kitchen with a magazine to read.

Staring at the pretty girl on the advert, feelin gay and sad. :(

-

It's not weird for 2 Kaias to date Claire at the same time. 

-

I love the moment where Jack mentions the mandragora, and Sam and Dean have a sort of shared moment of disappointment, because both know that their dad extincted the species. Which is hilariously on point in itself, that Chuck is the bad father extincting Trolls World Tour and their own father helped wipe out a species that might have been the way to stop it. 

Dads, am I right?

-

They have a brief conversation running through the options. I guess they haven't tried praying to Michael to ask him to help, but then, they're not exactly likely to GET his help calling him up to ask him to remove some grace and therefore be temporarily powered down in their presence, and all that just to save a girl trapped in another world rather than some big scheme specifically to do anything about the "real" problems.

-

Honestly though, Kaia trapped in the dying world that was Wayward, as a show concept, now having to be brought back to this world. Instead of bringing her back to life to make things better, it's like, no, she was always alive, but because we put her on this like... Spaceship to another show... we need to go The Martian her off that world now because she's getting reeeeally sick of potatoes and is about to run out of air.

Sorry about the metaphors. Anyway, Bobo having to fish her out of the lost spin off so that her story can conclude here, while it piles up with all the issues caused by the final season drama, and aggravated by the situation of the final season as a motivating factor to do it. The sort of metatextual sad retrieval of Kaia is just.

So much it's hard to bear. When we could have had something wonderful, and instead Jody cries about how long Kaia has been alive out there, and those tears are probably very very real for the hope and dreams of having Wayward and it not being picked up. The acceptance that here they are tying up the loose end, and this may be the last appearance any of them have, Kathryn Newton is turning into a global star, and this story has been ruined to the point that it really is like an alternate universe died.

-

SIGH. Never over it.

-

NEITHER IS CLAIRE. Oh nooooo. Because she's not on the show, Jody can only tell us about how Claire is coping. Of course it seems like Troll!Kaia tricked her into following a lead out of the way and into no phone signal land. Removing her from the story the same as Events have removed Kathryn beyond cellphone reach of this little show.

-

Lordy lordy and Cas, in love with Dean canonically in a Bobo episode, listening to Jody describing this sad story of Claire, who was in love with Kaia, seeking revenge for her lost first love... And given the chance, would be searching for that lost love herself.

Cas hearing this story of a first queer love being so powerful it changes you. And knowing it happened to himself. And then also to Claire, whom he is so connected to. Maybe not as a father in the end, but definitely as a guardian. 

-

Jack witnessing how much of this is affecting them... Lordy, he's going to risk himself to get Kaia back, isn't he?

-

Oh nooo this conversation with Troll!Kaia and Jack. 

they're so angry and hurt. And bad at conversation, both of them, but they are communicating on this whole other no bullshit level where they can just SAY things.

This is so profoundly sad, I can barely interact with it on a level above an anguished noise.

Bobo is for sure in mourning here about Wayward, and we thought LAST time he wrote Troll!Kaia he was sad and angry. That was the hot reaction after it didn't happen. This is the on reflection longterm feeling that's settled on his soul.

Having characters he's shaped so much or wholecloth created hash it all out like this, in their unvarnished words is just...

Knife to the heart.

Big two pointed spear to the heart, really.

-

I love how protective of Kaia that Troll!Kaia is.

Just so furious at Jack because she needs someone to blame :(

-

Always blame Chuck. New season 15 rule.

-

Oh poor Troll!Kaia feeling like an outsider in this world, regretting swapping in the first place. 

And while she's been a useless fugitive from another franchise here, in her own world she might be able to fight and protect it herself. If it were to survive, anyway. 

She has the savvy you'd think she could Rowena her way to the top there. 

-

Aaaaah. Jack is so moved by her description of being a cold sad outsider he snaps and helps her :( 

Knowing that Chuck could end him at any moment. 

Are we SURE he has no soul, or did they just ingrain doing right and not wrong so deeply in him it doesn't even matter, he'll still do a Big Stupid Sacrifice Move without needing the soul to motivate him?

-

Poor Kaia is so cold and alone too :( 

-

"I'M SAVING KAIA"

Good boy.

"Did you dreamwalk??!"

Dads telling off their son :'D

-

"One measly life on the line and you're ready to risk it all?"

HAVE YOU MET HIS DADS? JACK IS A GOOD BOY WHO MEANS WELL AND THEY TAUGHT HIM ALL THEY KNOW ABOUT BEING IDIOTS 

I love love love that this seems to be the through line of this chunk of the season I've ploughed through in the last few days. 

Just, the nature of being a hunter. Doing whatever it takes to save people, any people, even one small soul that no one in the cosmic scene would care about.

Kaia specifically called out how no one cares about her when she was introduced. And she must feel that it's so par for the course in her life that she'd be taken to a different universe, a dying universe, and forgotten.

And that in itself is a commentary I think on how the show was dropped. How the possibility of a beautiful epic queer love story for its mains, one of them a woman of colour, a native american character specifically, is introduced with that thesis that people don't care about people like her. And sure enough, the Mark Pedowitzes of the world decided that, nope, not even with all the sad white men in the world boosting the mothership franchise, they could not risk something EARNEST like this. 

Like, SPN is already wobbling around if it's even on brand for them, if they know how to market it. Like, they just throw money at the show and leave them to it, slightly baffled, because it gets ratings and it makes money, but danged if they've known what to do with it. A living cult classic, not one that's cancelled but one that can still grow and change as it goes... 

Ugh, I need to stop waxing poetic about this show as we go but the show itself is doing this, and in such fascinating subtle ways as it ties up its loose ends, both story and character. But also in its philosophy, as it addresses the world it's in and the world it reflects, the other worlds it COULD reflect. And what it means and who it is.

I mean I have been taking it so much for granted, but Jody really emphasised HARD that Claire LOVED Kaia and I skipped right over that because it already was so true to me. But maybe as a queer person myself it's just too obvious sometimes and I have to step back and look at the magnitude of having Jody, like, hands on hips, mom voice, "THEY WERE GAY FOR EACH OTHER" even as in the overall story it's so impossible to bring back all the magic elements to tell this broken thing well. 

The broken bird that the network mangled.

Gods, imagine if Destiel was not on the cards, and then the network didn't pick up Wayward, and Bobo kinda just went super saiyan and slammed the Destiel confession down on the table like "well, bitches, we tried doing this nicely, but I'm done playing."

-

As I hit play again, the reaper is challening Jack that she'll tell Billie that he's gone to get Clarie's GF for her, and then they get into a terrifying stand off, and Jack is 100% Bobo saying fuck you I'm doing this anyway. I'm doing it, and you can't stop me and I don't care any more. I'd rather do a good thing and face the consequences, then feel like shit for not having tried at all.

\- 

And that realisation has my heart just pounding in my chest, I guess with... Vindictiveness but in a happy way? Who knows what this is. 

Gay Spite Float behind the Gay Pride Float.

-

Anyway Jack eats hearts now, watch out.

-

"This is Winchester stupid"

Yeah, he's a Winchester-Kline. :) 

-

And just like that they have a deal and a plan.

Sometimes you just have to make yourself Very Clear that the higher ups can handle this later, while you get things going before they ever find out.

-

Ya know, if you go to them and say, so it's basically canon already now, we're pulling the trigger and you can't stop us 

\- 

Cas asking Jody to stay so he doesn't have to make Claire lose ANY more parents. 

Jody accepts it with a heavy heart. But sometimes you have to get the boys to do the dangerous thing while you hold down the fort because there are more important things than fighting. 

-

The nervous hesitation as they once more brave an AU portal.

-

Poor Troll!Kaia, facing this place again.

If that was a troll, are these critters goblins?

-

I hope we get to see the forest troll again.

-

Yep, people came back for you! 

"Hey kid!"

Still weird that Dean threatened her at gunpoint and then she hugs him. I guess the wordless gesture that despite all of it, he's still a face from that other world, still part of the group that came back for her, in the end. And for her, that gesture that SOMEONE actually cared, even someone who had been as rough with her as Dean, well, in the emotions she's not going to debate the details.

-

Oh no, Troll!Kaia is staying to defend this place :(

I guess it is her home, after all. She knows it better and maybe would rather die here, better to make a stand for what you believe and where you call home and the stuff you care about... Bah.

Well we get our Kaia back. :(

-

Maybe she knows stuff we don't about how they can't stay in the same place too long. And she'd rather sacrifice herself to let Kaia belong.

-

Oh no :( Chuck really did unravel it all. 

-

Kaia getting so many hugs!!!

Jody, you are mom of the year bringing Claire her gf home.

She's going to be SO MAD she missed it because she was off in hollywood lol lol lol

-

THEY GAVE HER THE RED HOODIE OF FAMILY

-

Jack caring about Kaia!!! Eeeee

-

Jody comes over... Please, give her the belated Avengers Initiative talk :(

I'm sure Jody just has to tell her that Claire will be there, or, will come home shortly after Kaia will and drop dead of amazement to see her sitting at the kitchen table drinking cocoa and waiting up for her :')

-

Yes I am already writing the fan fic in my head and I love everyone in this fandom who presumably wrote the same ish thing after this.

-

"Will Claire be there?"

Yay, she stayed strong and stayed gay.

-

Jody looks over her shoulder like, "I don't even need to get Claire a Christmas present this year, thanks for saving me money on expensive knives."

-

Okay I just burst out crying because of typing that a little but also just because I have to assume this is the last time we see them, with all that will come after. And suddenly painfully realising I have to say goodbye to them when it's the biggest disappointment I'll have of this show, and now Destiel is canon, by FAR the most it could hurt me even more than killing Charlie just because of the lost potential being so much grateful...

Wayward meant SO MUCH to me and so many of my favourite characters were tied to it. So many of the best episodes with these characters... 

Seeing Kaia touch her heart in thanks to them, but also kind of to us... God. 

It's a good thing you can already look up the Troutespond Series by Elizabeth Priest, pub. Luna Press, and find a series of books by a certain YA author who may or may not be me where there's a bunch of four plucky teen girls having adventures with the supernatural, and have romance plots with each other and all. Gyah. 

Yes, it was personal. I hate being told my own brand is not marketable. Because I believe in it with a fiery passion and SPN came SO CLOSE to the sort of validation that My Exact Shit was going to get the kind of treatment the sad dudes in SPN were getting

Ah well. 

SIgh.

Now we can wrap up the mens' story and I will cry and Destiel will be canon but this... this was something special :( 

-

*gulps down the rest of my tea*

-

Reaper is baffled by the effort they went to for one girl but is at least, like, well, that was a victory? 

Aaaand Billie stabs her in the first actual jump scare the show has done in 100 years. Good job! Glad I was no longer holding tea!

-

"Hello boys"

The show has really been slacking on that lately.

-

They are so the schoolboys caught smoking around the back and this is the head teacher. 

-

"Bending the rules already" Yeah, who knows how long he was scuttling around on his own, but being with family makes you like 10x more stupid in seconds in this world :'D

-

I forgot how much I love Billie. Like. She's on my desktop rotation on my laptop a couple of times but seeing her out here being menacing... Yep, that's the shit.

-

I guess that would explain why Billie was busy, if she had to go reap ALL the worlds. Well, she was needed to tell them exactly what was up, because there are so few players who can just drop that information. So in a way, isn't it a good thing Jack broke the rules so she'd have to show up and tell him how many people are dying everywhere else? :)

... Defending Jack to her is not gonna work, is it?

-

You don't understand, Billie, it's about STORYTELLING

-

I love the way she says "rules"

-

Yeah I'm just listening to her explaining and enjoying her presence :'D

Love the flashback to old white man Death. 

And the explanation that the books in the library write themselves. Because they're sort of out of God's reach in a way, so perfectly set up to self-regulate the system of life and death that even he can have a book because, well, the system is perfect. 

Maybe if it wasn't, he wouldn't have a book. 

I don't know if it was implied this was the Original Creation last time we got into cosmology here. It seems like the "Earth 2" thing might have been a star trek joke but also an implication that this IS earth 1 and the original creation. It did seem to be implied at least in my interpretation last time that this was just one of a series of worlds where Chuck had tried it before, at least in his perspective of before, and this was a later version in the sense that he'd already run trials that failed. 

Maybe cosmically things all start at the same start point no matter when in Chuck's perspective he creates them. But then why would he have this as "earth 1" if he'd chronologically run attempts before? Unless he has been balancing them all simultaneously but getting bored with each in turn and this ant farm has just run the longest, AND happens to be the combo he started out with? 

Aurgh, headache. Time to move on :P 

-

I'm guessing Sergei mentioning that key to the library means they're going to raid it to find out what the book says.

-

"You are the messengers of God's destruction"

Love the way she talks.

-

Ah, normal 2020 stuff happening in all these other worlds.

-

Ahaha poor lad, Chuck's going to unwind this world too. 

It might already be gone outside the door.

-

"You're going to be fine. Everything's just fine" 

that's very much the Winchester definition.

-

Aaaah, yep, there's the fiery meteors raining down on this world.

Poor Earth 2.

Ooof. 


	13. 15x13

15x13 watching notes

How many MORE episodes are there.

I am the only person in this fandom wishing there were fewer instead of more :'D

It's 9pm GMT, and I think the finale is around 2am. 

This race is genuinely the most fun I've had all year bar the day after it went canon and I came crawling back to fandom from my sleep-cocoon to see how everyone was doing.

-

I was looking at the episode title with concern, and description on this illicit watching site I'm on, wondering if I'm due more Buckleming or if it's someone good. And while I was thinking the episode kicked off with the Pizza Man comment.

And I am Sam and Dean startling upright like "what the fuck" as Cas says it.

OH I think I heard Meg came back briefly. I guess we're seeing into the Empty? 

Love that for Meg if she's reintroduced via Cas's weird pizza man thing with her >.>

-

uh.

-

Well it's 9pm and we're in lockdown for covid so I can't get up and just walk into town and get a drink so now what.

-

Destiel went canon, yes, but that was just stupid. What is happening. They are seriously. Meg. Pizza Man. All those fucking times Dean ate pizza and we were like LOL HE IS PIZZA MAN and that time Cas was a babysitter wasn't even in here but 

Dean has not been obsessively eating pizza on screen for the last few seasons so that they could do an eventual pizza man montage of him eating it after recapping that Cas "learned it from the pizza man" and then 

-

yeah

as Dean said, "enough of that"

-

Normal recap. Normal.

-

DESTIEL WENT CANON SPECIFICALLY WITH CAS AS THE INSTIGATOR WITH AN I LOVE YOU TO DEAN, AND THEY DO A RECAP ABOUT MEGSTIEL AND THE PIZZA MAN AND SHOW THAT SINCE CAS DID THE KISS WITH MEG DEAN HAS BEEN THE MOST PIZZA-Y MAN.

-

Okay Okay. Good old normal opening scene. Books. Sam and Dean doing research in the bunker. Lots of gnarly tomes I want to take home.

-

HAS HE BEEN EATING PIZZA LIKE THIS IN AN ATTEMPT TO WOO CAS? IS THAT WHAT THEY'RE TELLING US?

-

Okay, weird bunker noises. 

What is Cas doing in that room.

-

LIKE WATCHING THE PIZZA MAN AGAIN AND WEIRD NOISES AND A FLASH OF LIGHT IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ANGELS WATCH PORN?

WHAT WAS THAT RECAP EVEN FOR?

YOU DON'T JUST MAKE DESTIEL CANON AND TELLING US VIA PIZZA IS 

AURGH.

-

Um.

What. 

What. 

What.

-

What. 

-

What is happening.

-

Are these hipster Sam and Dean from one of the dying universes and they decided to Delorean their way through a rift to safety??

-

Oh, good, they're gone.

Let's pretend th at never happened

-

WAIT BUT NOW I'M BACK AT THE PIZZA MAN THING

-

*stares at the title card*

*goes to superwiki even though I've been having fun doing this before*

"Written by: Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming"

Okay so I kinda guessed from the episode description and title, and I didn't even get a chance to start typing much about that because Pizza Man, and then

that happened

I'm checking my hair in my handheld mirror to see how many new grey hairs I just obtained, a habit I've picked up mostly since reading covid or trump headlines.

-

Sam and Dean standing right next to each other one-mind explaining to Cas wtf just happened.

Cas has that slightly nervous energy of knowing he's in a Buckleming episode.

-

Fortunately Billie pops in to explain before we go too many loops of a Buckleming conversation.

-

I'm happy to see Billie again but I literally can not stop thinking about how we used to joke that Buckleming would make Destiel canon and then Bobo did all this hard work crafting beautiful and exquisite break up and make up stuff and Saileen parallels and gets us all warmed up for the big confession he knows is happening

And then Buckleming, who unfortunately ARE in the writing room, know Destiel is going canon this season too, so they

they

they make

pizza 

montage

as their opening sortee on their back half of the season episodes. Like, okay, we're bringing in the plane to land, folks, here we go! Big plot stuff, worlds blowing up! Panic! Fleeing Winchesters from another world who also had enough resources to get here!

(and have not fratricided each other yet, importantly)

(if they don't fratricide each other, but do show up again, it would be fun to have Dean kill that Sam and Sam kill that Dean, and if that's actually what happens I WILL get 3 more grey hairs immediately as karmic punishment for thinking like Buckleming trying to be clever)

ANd YOU OPEN YOUR EPISODE ON PIZZA MAN MEGSTIEL LEARNED IT FROM THE PIZZA MAN HERE IS MAN WITH PIZZA 

-

So, yes, actually. Bobo wrote the lovely confession but Buckleming aren't satisfied with him getting all the glory, and figure well we'll do some of this SUBTEXT that the kids are talking about!

Cas learned to kiss from the pizza man and he sure is wanting to kiss Dean, what if we 

-

I can't even 

-

Billie standing there in the background hands on hips and honestly #mood

-

I'm just thinking about all the people who start this show for the confirmed canon relationship and think it'll be a lark to make a project of watching the whole show, and all the stuff they wade through, the highs, the lows, and they're waiting for the meme'd Turbo Hell Slur Thoughts Confession to see for themselves, and before they even get there

like just a few episodes shy now

Pizza montage.

WHAT WAS THAT

WHO ALLOWED IT

I AM SO

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH

-

MITTENS JUST TOLD ME THIS WAS THE LAST EPISODE BEFORE COVID SHUT IT ALL DOWN.

-

I took a few breaths while I was on twitter looking at Real Life instead of getting obsessed with this stupid show, watching for like 2 straight (gay) days and then smashing into THIS trainwreck, and looking back at my notes I feel like I got a bit "Hook hand car door" there but I stand by it.

-

They don't know that Chuck is going to unmake this world! He was saying that Sam and Dean here were the only ones who interested him!

And if Sam and Dean are like those douchebags in the other worlds, let them fry! Wow!!

-

[Clips of Dean eating pizza throughout the series]

-

Well I snapped and I'm looking at the transcripts as I go because I need to have like, confirmation I'm hearing what I'm hearing.

CASTIEL: Can you be more specific?

BILLIE: Jack needs to find the Occultum.

SAM: The Occultum? Occultum, that's, uh, Latin for "hidden." Where do we find it?

BILLIE: I don't know, it's hidden.

because I just heard that dialogue and

I mean it sure happened. That sure is some dialogue with some words in it. Some of them latin! 

-

SAM: What does that even mean? Dean? [Sam raps on the table when Dean doesn't reply] Dean.

DEAN: Hmm?

SAM: What are you doing?

idk, spacing out thinking about how poor Lizzy is going to have to analyse this episode and everything was going great and now we're in a Buckleming episode looking for a mcguffin they've given us such vague terms for they can pull any bullshit in terms of making the characters run around all day, and AU Sam and Dean were the worst and Dean was the pizza man canon confirmed that we're supposed to think Cas thinks of the pizza man when he sees Dean piling pizza into his face and Cas is like, why does pizza make me horny.

-

Anyway. Dean takes several minutes to talk through how they need to also kill Amara to sort things out.

Then makes the leap that this necessarily means someone has to be in charge.

Like, before this point they had no qualms about taking God out even without thinking about replacements.

Then of course the Highlander comparison, like, does Jack take over because he gets to do the killing?

Jack walks in blowing bubblegum, proud of himself. They're like, er, maybe not him. 

Don't know if that's just a throwaway joke or actually setting Jack up for a real leadership challenge. Sort of feel like they're giving him a ton of goofy stuff to do right now, so maybe he'll be challenged to show some leadership?

Sure love that right after a super serious episode where the first thing he does on return is right the wrongs with Kaia, we go to this.

-

Dean doesn't know that Cas has been calling Sergei for everything from huge healing magics to getting a good insurance quote. 

-

Cas canonically loves Cas through this scene.

He hates that he does.

-

Jo!!!

Glad Danneel is still out here being fabulous, anyway.

Bit painful to see something which aired, I think? the day of our first lockdown starting here in the UK, where Sister Jo is like, lol the healthcare system sucks in America so I'm getting by.

Like. Seattle is currently having a hotspot, New York is about to kick off in a truly apocalyptic fashion and SPN will shut down filming and not air any more episodes until the end of the year. And this is a wry joke written before the pandemic and aired right then...

truly, this show's timing is amazing. Probably not as unfortunate as Meredith kicking off with the Hitler episode on the day Trump was elected. And wow, that just made the fandom miserable, while the day Trump LOST the next election, well.

-

Ugh, losing time staring blankly and not watching. Come on, Lizzy. Power through! You can do this!!

-

Jack has to do a thing of a spiritual nature and get this book and instead of a Jack-centric episode where he's off like wandering in the desert Jesus style we get Sam and Dean standing next to each other hands in their pockets talking exposition 

and also then while I was typing that, Sister Jo said "Ruby" and, cool, both the wives in an episode, ANYWAY WHAT THE FUCK IN ALL THAT WAS HOLY was Sam's reaction there?

Impassive "why did you give it to her"

I'm

going to commend him on his amazing road to recovery from all she did to him, all the angst, trauma and betrayal. That he can get to a place of wellbeing where hearing her name, and he's like, oh, ruby, right yeah that's totally fine and normal.

-

Sam's more concerned about asking her that they were friends than 

like

reacting to the fact that this story is suddenly about Ruby.

RUBY.

-

God, was the pizza man thing just a way to slip in a reminder of Ruby in Gen vessel, without making it weird, and then they were like, well, Destiel IS going canon this season, may as well throw in a few dozen more instances of Dean eating pizza to really throw them off the scent of imminent Ruby appearances! Let's just collect a bunch of Dean eating pizza moments wow we're so genius.

-

sdkfhsdfksdfs

-

Are they at least going to take Jack to hell with them so he can have a spiritual journey and see Auntie Rowena?

-

... He's currently Deaning out on a ton of junk food, from pizza to chicken wings.

-

Talks about losing his soul, guess he's trying a bit of all the foods just to experience them all and see what they're like now.

This drifts into talking about what Jack did bad before, and then how Dean in particular is still freaked out by Jack (I mean he was eating hearts and has no soul) and that at least gets Cas talking about how great Dean is. Without Dean around to hear it. 

Of course, Cas loves Dean, Destiel will be going canon, this is a dry run with a receptive audience that's not Dean for Cas to say nice things about Dean.

I guess also relevant that Jack knows about the empty deal I'm sorry I'm typing all this with the pizza at the bottom of the screen still and it's sending me up the wall because all I can think about is the pizza man montage and further unanswerable questions about why they would choose to do that.

-

"How long will that take"  
"I don't know" Well, Cas has had a lot of problems with them taking forver to make up before. So. The answer might be "Like six years and a lot of hells"

-

Oh for gods sake Sam and Dean from the AU are trapped in the wall as like, ghosts now.

-

Dean's instinct being like, okay let's just leave these fuckers and forget about it. Not our problem.

And yes I think that is absolutely correct and let's drop this plotline and move on and it's fine if they just fade away and die eventually and that's that, problem solved.

-

Maybe while they're trapped in the wall they'll go mad with frustration, and kill each other.

-

Dear god please save me from this. Now Cas has said "sexually intimate" in front of Dean and broken his entire thinking process as effectively as Buckleming ruining my life with the pizza man montage, as Dean processes the way Cas talks about sex, and like, he already apparently by Jensen's word thinks that Cas doesn't understand human emotions and stuff, so Cas talking like this, unembarassed and clinical and not thinking it's weird to talk about someone's past sex life in front of them even when it was a source of great trauma just sets Dean back further in thinking Cas can ever be available to him

And meanwhile also Sam's reaction to talking about Ruby continues to be a total mess because it's like, he has TRAUMA there. He didn't have a stable relationship again for years! He was betrayed! He unleashed Lucifer because of her! We can't just tease him for being "sexually intimate" with her

WHAT HAPPENED TO BADASS SENSITIVE CAS WHO WAS SO GOOD AT READING A ROOM THESE DAYS JUST A FEW EPISODES AGO

-

I hope he's not trapped in a wall somewhere

-

Dean just seems bored quipping about things these days. 

-

Still not taking Jack to hell with them, even though he's still supposed to have some sort of spiritual journey to get the thing. 

-

Cas making up bullshit about how he can kind of almost die and just pop into the empty for a day trip.

For information

Before Sam and Dean are even back from Hell with information about if they did or didn't find the thing.

If it's so easy to pop into hell, just send them back when they have better coordinates. 

Like at least wait.

He's literally like that meme about "I made my son drain my lifeforce into one of your old flasks" "WHY" "Idk you're basically 99% of my impulse control"

What is this

-

ALSO HE'S ASKING JACK TO DO A BUNCH OF STUFF WITH HIS POWERS LITERALLY RIGHT AFTER IT WAS ESTABLISHED HE SHOULDN'T DO THAT OR CHUCK WOULD FIND OUT HE'S ALIVE???

-

UGh ugh ugh keep watching.

-

Cas this is the worst idea ever. Jack agrees. 

He says Jack will be fine if he's lost forever which is a bit ominous about Cas in Turbo Hell.

-

Okay good random demon fight to make some time pass before we're free of this episode and I can move on to someone else handling this story.

-

1 more buckleming after this, right?

-

Lol, Cas was right at least that this was suspicious but you know what would have been better than letting them GO TO HELL and then having private concerns and doing something as insane as this, instead of just asking basic questions to Sam and Dean about the quality of the information Jo gave, deciding it's fishy, and investigating further, in a way where no one goes to either Hell or the Empty until all the facts are known.

And also Jack is supposed to be having some sort of spiritual journey/trial of sorts to do this himself but instead is really just being trialled by having such idiot parents that all 3 are in various afterlives right now risking themselves on bad intel and quick impulses. 

-

I mean Buckleming sure are contributing to a historical thing, which is, some of the worst TV show writing right next to the best, left there to befuddle all the poor people who will attempt the show, and find their own trials are in overcoming each of their episodes in turn in order to get the good stuff.

-

Hey Meg!

She called Cas "Pizza man" which I suppose implies, actually, that CAS is the pizza man who delivers the pizza to Dean, and I guess that tidies it up a bit in that the innuendo is that Cas is putting his pizza in Dean

Which still doesn't explain the choice to do that montage at all but I guess does make it make internal logic which is sometimes the best you can hope for for analysing Buckleming.

guys it's past 10pm, I've been at this all day, this is the longest I've gone without playing final fantasy in months, and I get all this far at great personal cost in terms of overconsumption of caffiene and this episode is honestly gonna kill me before I can ever see the SPN finale and you'll have to put "Cas was the pizza man?????" on my grave.

-

*scratches my nose*

This recapping of Ruby's word against Jo's is making me think

er

Didn't they say Jo was up in Heaven pushing a button until the angel fall in season NINE and THEN she established herself?

I feel like making her a huge power player all the way back here is stretching that a wee bit.

-

Hey Bela might have known about this. She was good at occult objects!

-

Sam and Dean come back to find out they can NOT leave Cas unattended with Jack.

My god I'm only halfway through this episode.

-

I'm glad we got like one more epic Rachel Miner eyebrow raise for the road. Her face is so wonderful and expressive. I do hope she's keeping well :')

-

I guess at least that gives Dean one point against Cas in the "you're an idiot" column but honestly

what even is all this

-

my god I hope we don't have to spend the second half of the episode dealing with the AU Sam and Dean in the wall. A good writer would make them somehow part of this occultum thing but I fail to see how.

What is going on 

-

Those guys seem like an idea from an early draft that should have been ditched, but as we know, Buckleming don't really draft so much as vomit stories into two separate buckets them mix them together afterwards then hand it proudly over to the production team. 

-

The occultum is the safest place in the world, but that's the bunker and Jack is here and he already made his way home???

Let's just take that and pretend the rest doesn't matter. episode over, yay good win for the team.

-

Dear god that was a lot of nonsense none of which makes sense because Chuck KNOWS them, like he's God, will he actually be fooled by -

oh never mind, just do the thing. I can start another episode ASAP.

-

Wow these are dreadful interpretations of alternative Winchesters. Nothing can be done with them. 

-

Are we all really going to sit down and do this.

-

Dean can lob a bottle at alternte him's head.

They can just murder their own alternate selves rather than fratriciding their AU selves.

Although if they did want to trap Chuck by faking fratricide they get two whole attempts. 

Keep these fuckers in the dungeon and rough them up from time to time, give them the right clothes, THEN you can try.

-

pfft hellhound attack just because it's been a while I guess. Always takes up some time in the story.

Is this a shaggy dog story but shaggy hellhound story.

I'd rather like this not to have any ongoing effect to the main story.

-

Ugh, of course Buckleming had busty asian beauties on their list to tick off before the end of the show. 

-

Jack eats the thing because I guess he just eats stuff now.

He's taking after Dean more and more by the day.

-

Oh he seems to have stumbled on the garden of eden, inside the orb

(not the earlier orb, this new orb. this is the orb season)

-

Pfft the snake here... Felix's revenge?

I know it can't be Actual Satan. 

Well because Jack didn't get to do any work on his own aside from deciding to eat the orb, he gets a few flashes of his life story so far to think over. 

-

Then he's just back and that was that. 

\- 

Is the orb still in him?

-

Are

they 

releasing a Sam and Dean into the wilderness?

-

Oh whatever.

I don't even care, let's just go with That Happened.

This is mostly a nonsense episode.

-

Does Jack seem to have his soul back... Is this jsut a thing that lasts until he poops out the orb?

-

I hope not.

-

Man, what even was that. Thank goodness I did not have to spend THE ENTIRE TIME THE SHOW WAS OFF FOR LOCKDOWN DEALING WITH THAT. WOW. 

-

I can't believe that they were allowed to write such an insane episode and not allow it through some sort of quality control before releasing it on the world, regardless of knowing if it would be the last episode for months or not. That's just.

Wow. 

They needed a reeeeal stinker before the end. That was on their checklist too.

I guess no one was... violated? Racism was fairly low. Women weren't murdered much except the reminder of Ruby being stabbed? There's some high points! Yay!

Moving on! Moving on! Get me out of this hellhole where nothing matters and writing with integrity is for losers!


	14. 15x14

15x14 watching notes

Still absolutely shaken in a bad way that the previous episode was actually an episode. The recap just reminds me that Jack was supposed to be on a quest. And then that happened!

Precious Jack time with our newly restored nougat son and instead of him having a full actual QUESTING QUEST he just had a bunch of visions in the last minute and got his soul back and that was that???

-

Deep breaths.

Looks like this one is a Jeremy Adams monster of the week, and life's too short at this point, hours from finale, to not just look this up as I start the episode :'D

-

Soothe me, quiet Sam working in the Bunker. A desktop background for my laptop :') 

-

Is Jack actually in the episode or is he hiding in his room all episode like when Kevin lived here and we'd have like whole Bunker-based episodes where he didn't show up :'D

-

I wish Jack and Kevin were friends.

-

Hehehe Dean making Mario jokes. 

Nerd.

-

"Meat man!!"

Dean, you disaster. That is so. You still. 

Okay so he has scooby doo boxers, so that's something.

I see you, Jeremy Adams, writer of Scoobynatural.

-

I think the MoL left a magic housemaid in the system.

-

Aw she's a fairy. Wood nymph. I'm glad we have more nonsense with fairies. needed a good fairy episode before the show was over. Maybe specifically after the last episode to soothe me.

I can't believe the MoL made a wood nymph fall in with them and exploited her for her 1950s housekeeper mentality. 

She could really do with some feminism, but why do I feel like the brothers are going to get at least a day of her doing all the cleaning before they decide she's a problem and put her back in a bottle or whatever.

-

WAIT has she been tidying it at night the whole time, which explains why it's always clean? Did they just think it was self-cleaning 

no, she just hasn't been out since then.

-

She just wants to look after them.

I'm glad my headcanon is validated that these boys are pretty stinky. 

The price is no longer swearing and they can be clean and non-smelly. 

-

Dean DOES clean the bunker himself from time to time, being known to be fussy about the kitchen. Maybe he and mrs butters will get along.

Some of his personal funks where he stinks out his room with beer and junk food and being unwashed for days aside.

-

So they decide that since she can make the Bunker behave much better (omg Triss must have flipped during all this... Are we just personifying the Bunker as somewhat like Mrs Butters from now on?) they'll give her some trust... So far this is all mostly just amusing and kinda sweet in a very uncertain way. I sort of feel like things with fairies can be bad not that they're bad themselves but that they can ... get a bit overboard... If she wants to help, she may be a curse in a sort of Sorcerer's Apprentice brooms out of control way rather than because she's truly malicious. 

-

They try and tell Jack (Hi! in the episode!) about her. And he does look around when they say "snickerdoodles" so I guess food can tempt him.

She does make what looks like the best sandwich. 

-

Oh no these poor stoned vampires. They're SO bad at being vampires. 2 seconds on the hunt for Sam and Dean.

-

OH here's the problem: the entire bunker is dressed for Christmas. 

-

Jack does the "Hi!" hand thing when greeting her, lured out by Christmas, and wearing fresh clean pyjamas.

Now she gets a look at him for the first time, she gets uncomfortable because NOW she can get a bit of a measure on him, the whole - whatever he isness - of him throws her off. 

(Does he still have the Orb in his tummy? It's probably too large to pass any further through his system.)

-

Dean, Jack is not a millennial he's OH LORDY WHAT ARE YOU WEARING

jeremy adams having fun throwing in more references back to Scoobynatural. Mrs Butters is clearly reaching into their imaginings of comfort and domesticity, as much as her own perceptions of what holidays should be like. And of course, finds in Dean's head, a memory of how lovely the cartoon nightgown and cap combo were, and I guess... set out on his bed the night before the real deal for him to try?

-

Poor POOR Sam.

-

Mrs Butters is still somewhat stunned by jack for a second and then she decides she HAS TO FEED HIM. Grandma instinct initiated. 

Maybe it's good someone will fuss over them.

-

Sam and Dean enjoying their new radar.

It gets them out of the house and leaves Jack to bond with Mrs Butters.

-

MILK MOUSTACHE BABY

-

Yeah, this is the real point of the episode here, I think: Mrs Butters taking Jack to do the dishes together. Giving him something useful to do... He and Mary even had a few domestic moments in the kitchen though I think one of them was literally the episode he would later accidentally kill her and he already had no soul ... But she gets him talking, about his non-relationship with Lucifer, how he's happy to call TFW his family, and then onto Mary.

Because there's been many episodes of shock, and months passing, in universe and out, but for Jack, who not only just got back from being dead recently but also then even more recently was united with his soul, Mary is a fresh trauma for him. And this is something huge on him specifically. And of course the whole basis of the whole show, kicked off by Mary's first death. Bringing her back was such a pivotal change to the world and the way Dabb era really started in earnest. And then Jack had to go and kill her. 

But not before she was a grandmotherly figure to him in a way. Also in a friend way.

Having this extremely friendly and extremely anti-Mary domestic goddess (literally) grandmotherly type character to unload on... None of Mary's personality, but symbolically at least she has a vague line of being an Adult with a similar rank. I think kids are much more sensitive to that sort of thing as well... 

So she's a pretty safe person to unload on, especially being new here, and not being judgemental after her initial shock at meeting Jack and not knowing what he was. No burdens connected to their personal issues, especially.

-

"she was good friend"

Waaah.

-

Also someone the Winchesters just met who is learning about Mary from someone else other than them. Getting Jack's perspective on her instead of theirs with their baggage.

-

Okay, what is Mrs Butters's baggage and things she's done she's not proud of? Because that's kind of ominous.

-

I've forgotten where Cas is in this episode but I'm very concerned that many days are passing and they're having a ridiculous feast party each time and Cas is not here and I legit can't remember if they even gave a reason where he was to start with but days have passed now... 

I'm starting to wonder if it's not days, it's like... some sort of fever dream fairy time and mere hours have gone by since they accidentally unleashed her and this is all happening faster than they realise. 

-

Hm well no, here's some nighttime down time and Jack finally gets to see her doing something suspicious, so maybe that does mean they're having rest in between. 

Love that for him. You bust this Mrs Butters thing wide open baby.

But also, where is your papa, Castiel?

-

Those drawers she's poking through are the ones they keep things like the demon tablets in and stuff.

-

UHOH here's the MRS BUTTERS DOSSIER.

-

Has she mistaken Cas for a threat and fucking obliterated him.

-

Mittens has reassured me that Mrs Butters has not turned Cas into smoothies.

-

JACK SWORE.

Good for him.

-

Awwwwwwww Sam has a daaaaaate

-

Mrs Butters is making him way too fancy... Eileen might start to expect standards from him.

-

I'm getting worried that Dean is being too casually mean to Sam in a teasing way, and that Mrs Butters might try and rip his head off for honest misunderstanding of how much Dean ribs Sam.

-

Oh, right, she's distracted Sam and Dean while singling Jack out because she is finding HIM to be threatening because he's so powerful and, er, did accidentally kill their mom. And that's the sort of thing that makes Mrs Butters feel very protective of her MoL. How can she trust him not to do it again? He doesn't even trust himself not to do it. And so she's seen that fear in him and reflected it back on him tenfold... Oh dear.

-

Okay Mrs Butters, hands off the nougat child. I will kill you if you hurt him.

-

I do wish in all the world building they've been throwing in this season, they'd explained even a little about how the fairy realm fits into this and how they can possibly be so much stronger than all the other things like even being able to crack the Cage and other stuff... Mrs Butters easily being able to handle Jack, for example, isn't unprecedented in the lore but is super weird to think about unless we accept that fairies are pretty much a power unto themselves, even against God, and who even knows where they came from or how they got here. Did Chuck even have anything to do with making them? I'm doubting it :P

-

Oh, well, I guess she has also been poisoning him with smoothies so he'd be weaker. 

Good thing that absolutely nothing plot related happened in all the days of running around doing easy cases and such.

Honestly I don't mind funny episodes in the middle of all this but it is super weird to have a funny episode which shows a great deal of time elapsing, and Sam and Dean in this weird place where they are having like a full week or more uninterrupted cheerfulness and no plot interruptions. Logically we know it must happen sometimes, but... Right now in the endgames of their whole angsty bullshit? 

Feel like maybe this episode should have been, like, 2 days tops. 

I guess Mrs Butters could have been drugging all the other food as well to make Sam and Dean more pliant and happy.

Eileen's going to have her date with Sam and be like "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU'RE ACTING SO WEIRD" and shake him back to some sense.

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But I guess at the end of the day the real point of the episode, after a little fun with Sam and Dean, is really just to make Jack feel really bad about killing Mary and the potential threat he poses to the rest of his family, and have someone really dig into him about who and what he is and make him confront that.

Since, you know, Buckleming did such a greeeat job with their whole episode dedicated to his quest and him earnestly working very hard to be rewarded with getting his soul back. 

Um.

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Ahahaha "to make the bunker safe again!" 

such a MAGA-style statement in the way she delivers it. 

WHooops she really is a republican granny who is nice to your face and then disowns your gay son and you find out he's disinherited at family Christmas and it's like, woah woah woah you did WHAT, but the kid has already boarded a train to San Francisco with their last few dollars -

okay this is getting away from me

It's past midnight and I've been watching SPN since I woke up early this morning :'D

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Dean realising this has broken bad, like, DAMMIT, because he really was hoping that this was all going to be rainbows and lolipops but nope, Mrs Butters haaaad to have her prejudiced views about Jack. Christmas is ruined. Dean throws down his grilled cheese in disappointment.

"Of course you had to go full Nurse Ratched."

She keeps on trying to lecture him about how bad Jack is. I'm struck how she said Dean wouldn't have to be scared of Jack any more - the idea of her intolerance being something where she wants to feed their fear about him, to stoke the idea in them that they even should be scared of him in the first place. She WANTS to stoke this in them, to convince them that they should do it, when she's the one who was scared of Jack and of course Jack's dads are very accepting of him. They've all been on murder rampages as well, Mrs Butters has done all her killing righteously. Like no one should say that killing a Nazi is a bad thing. And so the bloodthirstiness SHE feels, the fact SHE can be scary is fairly easily overlooked. After all, she's loyal to the MoL! What do they have to fear from her? 

... And then these milennial MoL arrive and they're not like the old MoL, they're DIFFERENT and that's dangerous. Even though Sam and Dean have perpetuated huge damage even to each other, never mind others, and are currently being pestered by a god who thinks they should just get on with fratriciding each other already, she still picks on Jack as the one who is the danger. Doesn't accept him as a MoL even though he's said that he's the adopted son of the guys, I'm gueeeessing her values don't quite know how to cope with a kid with 3 dads, none of whom are Lucifer despite a biological connection... 

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Oh I love that Dean is like, play it cool play it cool, OKAY let's just go downstairs and get my SON out of the DUNGEON

cut to: Dean being chucked into the dungeon by Mrs Butters.

Mrs Butters has 1 MoL to dote over and that is Sam. How long can she keep him dazed and happy and not notice everyone is in the dungeon.

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And meanwhile I guess with so much episode left, we're due a good Dean n Jack chat! Yay!

I am so tired. 

No way I can watch all the episodes. 

Probably have low chance of remaining unspoiled on the ending even if I try really hard to be good and carry on powering through until I'm done.... Because the internet is going to freaking EXPLODE in a couple of hours.

... I think I'd better call it for now on this very amusing stop point... Reconnect with the fandom when I'm done I guess :'D

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OKAY I was flagging last night but I am BACK and I have a secret weapon: Cake, Coffee in a Baby Yoda mug and Baby "The Child" Yoda-Mandalorian himself in my lap, his big pointy goblin ears jabbing my elbows as I try to write.

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i LOVE that even though obviously Sam is out on his date and Cas is MIA looking for plot stuff in his season 10 MO (and Kevin is nowhere to be seen in the Bunker), Jack still gets to see Dean fail Mrs Butters' loyalty test and pass one he didn't even know he had by Dean being the first to join him in the dungeon.

Guess we litigate all family drama in the dungeon in this season.

Mrs Butters unsubtly references the "serpent in the garden" "just like his father" on the way out. Honestly hilarious that a fairy would make a Christian reference like that but we'll let it pass as part of her 40s housewife act.

Maybe the MoL taught her Good American Values as part of having her onboard. She seems the type who'd get really into bible study if it was what was asked of her to be in the family.

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Sam comes back late from his date looking rather less put together than he went out. Good for him.

He's smarter than Dean was - no not because Mrs Butters says so. But because he played along and bought time to go phone Dean (Mrs Butters too 1950s to remember phones exist). Dean's loyalty to Jack got him into this mess. He tried to rationalise with her so he didn't have to fight Mrs Butters to get to Jack but even telling her she was wrong was enough for him to lose that argument.

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"Why didn't you call me???"

Oh yeah he had his phone too.

lol but Date Night.

"That's more important than coming to save you!?!?!?!?"

Sam have you met your brother. He and Jack aren't even tied up in here, or physically injured except for maybe a bruised knee or two. Maybe if one of them was cursed and bleeding uncontrollably?

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Dean blames Sam for not looking into it, Sam point out they both were planning to but then Mrs Butters distracted them both... They have a moment where it seems like regret for being so easily hoodwinked but they're just reminiscing about the food they'll not get to have any more that Mrs Butters has to be stopped.

"Idk shoot her!"

Then they remember the button that started all this. I like the idea they press it again, and just hang a sign on it that says WARNING: MRS BUTTERS for all future generations of MoL.

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"Do you still think I'm a monster? :("

This is why Lizzy has Baby Yoda to hug.

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I think Dean's giving a forgive but can't forget but not be like, murder rage about it, speech.

Doesn't super clarify things, and leaves Jack looking miserable, because it seems so far away from being able to just be family again to him. 

I think Dean's giving him so much more leeway than he'd have given anyone else at any other time. Considering the size of the transgression. 

This is mr "welcome to next time" on their own grandpa.

but he is willing to UNDERSTAND Jack and like he was saying in the big ole Cas prayer, he gets so angry, and then after the big ole Cas prayer, he swallowed it down and started trying so hard to keep his feelings moderated a little more, recognising what it had nearly lost him to go full rage on Cas. 

And hence he's been able to be in the same room as Jack, to work on mending those bonds. And honestly that's such a big step towards it gradually repairing in time. Especially as Jack got his soul back so he can feel sorry and the threat that he'd mistakenly do such a thing again has been lowered so much as a result of having it back. 

But Jack's too young still to really feel secure and understand Dean's process and how well this is actually going for him. Just black and white, monster or no. And he doesn't have the luxury of time to work it out - he's on a QUEST and he has to KILL GOD, like, IMMINENTLY. If he doesn't have a grasp on who he is over the next WEEKS he might be wobbling from a course of unimaginable importance.

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Anyway Sam's attempt to stop Mrs Butters is going well.

Sam does not appreciate how important his job and this place are :'D He's her FAVOURITE. She can't give up on him! (this sounds like God, having favourites.)

Mr Cuthbert maaay have done something pretty hinky to her. He was an evil wizard after all. 

He is really the Chuck allegory, especially with him being dead and having just left this dictats. I mean is she like Michael, coming back and blindly doing his will, ready to kill Jack because he's like HIS father? 

Ironically, Cuthbert favoured Dean back in season 9.

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Fake out shot of Dean about to stab Jack - no, he's just going for the handcuffs. See also: Lizzy's desperate pleas for them to fake trying to kill each other to lure Chuck out.

-

*jack flies across the room and groans*  
*outside, in the dawn light of morning, the bin men are coming by and one of them makes an absolutely righteous "HUAARGHGHGGHHHG" roar for some reason*

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Mrs Butters didn't even close the shelf on them, she just locked the door... Are they really staying in here because they didn't want to smash down the door?

one braincell two winchesters! 

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Three if you include Sam, but Cas borrorwed the braincell to go do whatever he's doing.

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*covers Baby Yoda's eyes as Mrs Butters does some HEINOUS bad stuff to Sam's finger*

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I don't have much to say about their argument - she's basically just taking the hardest line approach, Sam the softest. The middle ground is AAALL in the other room, being idiots

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Okay, door's open.

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Dean did not have to SMASH THE BUTTON WITH A HAMMER

he's teaching Jack some very bad practices about overkill.

-

Well, Mrs Butters was only slowed for a moment.

There is nothing more terrifying than a middle aged woman in sensible shoes walking briskly and firmly towards you like that. *gulp*

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"YOU HURT HIM, YOU HURT US" Why do I feel like this episode is also just trying to prove to some lagging fans that Jack is Definitely Family. And the ridiculousness of Mrs Butters is somewhat about making fun of the attitude towards refusing to let the Winchesters have anything nice XD

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Anyway Dean is the one who vouches for Jack in a way that gets through to her :') Maybe arguing for his utility, but his utility in a way that's core to their family values, I guess??

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They accept Mrs Butters' apology and that's all in the past. Back to chatting with Mrs Butters as they set her free. 

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"interdimensional geoscope"

Bit pointless now, all the other dimensions are gone.

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Jack gives her the photo that I was wondering why they even still had up since they didn't like Cuthbert long before this XD But it's a nice gesture from him. And even though they revealed that she was lied to and tortured, she loves the MoL as a whole, and clearly forgives Mr Cuthbert too and I guess accepts if he was trying to save the world he had his reasons for GASLIGHTING A NICE FAIRY INTO STAYING TO DO THEIR DISHES AND NEVER GOING HOME long after WWII was over.

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Men *tuts*

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Dean, eat your vegetables. Sam. CUT. Your. HAIR.

*sam gulps.* No, it was definitely time for her to go. He might not have held out much longer in exchange for pancakes if he did it...

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Aww Sam and Jack pep talk. 

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He thinks he was stupid to be got by Mrs Butters. She got under all their skins! It was the omlettes.

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Sam believes in him!

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"He loves that apron" AND I LOVE HIM IN IT.

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omg Dean. 

YES

CAKE

BIRTHDAY CAKE FOR JACK.

DEAN HAS MADE CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE

-

He would not make it past this round of bake off.

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Come on, Dean, he's like, 3 now, not 1. You don't even know how old your son is??

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I am certain that Jack's birthday wish will save the world. 


End file.
